Wei Wuxian forced himself out of bed and into Wen Qing's lab the following morning, still not able to fully shake off the hollow feeling from the failed interview the day before. At least half of his dread was having to tell Wen Ning that he had tanked it, when the man had been so excited for him the day before.
He didn't want to disappoint him, but he also didn't want to lie.
Wen Qing was the first to ask him about the interview.
"So? How did it go yesterday?" Wen Qing asked as she hooked him up to run the first scan of the day.
Wei Wuxian grimaced. "About as well as you'd expect for someone with no references or credentials, looking for a job in the most prestigious cultivation school in the world."
Wen Qing's jaw tightened, but she didn't look surprised. "It was a long shot. But at least you tried."
Wei Wuxian wasn't so sure it had been a good idea to try, since he'd likely burned a bridge that now wouldn't be available to him even after he re-cultivated his core. But he had more immediate problems to worry about.
"If I'm not allowed to cultivate with the sword for another few months, how am I supposed to support myself once I'm out of here?"
Wen Qing looked up from where she was reading his chart.
"What skills do you have besides night hunting?"
Wei Wuxian snorted out a hollow laugh. "Nothing. I was an orphan on the streets, then I was a cultivator. I've never done anything else."
Wen Qing clicked her tongue in reprimand. "I asked about skills not jobs. Surely you know how to do things besides just swing your sword around."
Wei Wuxian couldn't help but chuckle, despite how fucked up everything was.
"I mean. I'm good at archery. At regular hunting, not just night hunting. I can draw pretty ok. And swim." He looked over at Wen Qing, then winked. "I can flirt."
Wen Qing rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched. "Good thing you don't need to try to make money on that last one."
Wei Wuxian put a hand to his chest in mock affront. "What, are you saying I couldn't make money as a cam boy? I'll have you know—" he cut off, an idea flickering through his mind.
"You'll have me know what ?" Wen Qing asked.
"Well, it doesn't really matter, because I can't afford the equipment, but when the Jiang first started posting videos of the sect night hunts, my streams did pretty well."
"What happened?" Wen Qing asked.
Wei Wuxian shrugged. "Like I said. They did pretty well. Madam Yu didn't like it, so she banned any footage of me from getting out. But I guess there's no one banning me now. No one's probably interested in watching a coreless cultivator, though."
Wen Qing's jaw tensed in the way Wei Wuxian was learning meant she was annoyed.
"You're in no condition to night hunt," she reminded him.
Wei Wuxian was thinking through all his past night hunts. There were some where he had been able to handle them just with talismans. Not many, but it was possible.
"I can't night hunt with a sword , but there are plenty of hunts I could use talismans for. The problem is no one would hire me. Most of the night hunts around here go to the Lan sect, and they barely gave me five minutes before telling me to fuck off. And I'm not exactly a famous cultivator that people would know to contact."
"So find something else to do in the meantime. Don't you have my brother running some simulations for your food preservation talisman?"
Wei Wuxian shrugged. "I mean… yeah? But it's just for fun. It's not like the hospital is going to hire me to stand around and make talismans all day for them."
"Have you asked them?" Wen Qing asked.
"I… no. I mean, first we have to test it enough to know it isn't going to poison the people we're trying to help."
"Then don't rule it out. A-Ning says that talisman is really amazing. Until you get enough of a core built up that you can use some of your old skills, this seems like a good option to start with. Definitely better than your flirting skills..."
Wei Wuxian snorted a laugh. He couldn't really argue. It might not be as exciting as night hunting, but if it could earn him enough money to have a phone, a computer, and a place to stay after his free housing ran out, he would be the last one complaining.
When he finished his readings with Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian headed back to her office to spend the next hour or two working with Wen Ning and going over the results from the latest simulation of the food preservation talisman. They just about had what they needed to finally take this to the hospital for approval.
But when he got to the office, he found Wen Ning curled up laying on the small sofa rather than working at the computer.
"Hey, Wen Ning," Wei Wuxian said softly as he came in, not sure if the man was asleep or awake.
Wen Ning opened his eyes, his expression looking drawn and exhausted.
"Are you ok?" Wei Wuxian asked, worried.
"Sorry Wei Laoshi. I didn't get the last simulation run," Wen Ning said.
Wei Wuxian knelt down beside the sofa. "Hey. What's all this 'laoshi' business? Haven't I told you just to call me by my name? And don't worry about the simulation. A few days one way or the other won't matter.What matters is if you're ok. Do you need anything? Should I get your sister?"
The door opened behind him and Wen Qing walked in.
"A-Ning! They said you'd had another episode," Wen Qing walked briskly over to her brother, and Wei Wuxian moved aside to make space for her.
Her face was worried as she checked her brother's vitals, and then his qi.
"Uncle Four is on a run, and Popo isn't answering her cell," Wen Qing said, sounding tense. "Uncle Four will be back in a couple of hours. Hopefully Popo will call back soon and we can call a didi to take you back to her place to rest until I'm off shift. I have rounds starting in just a few minutes, but I can leave early as soon as I finish them."
Wen Ning looked up at his sister. "JieJie, we agreed you wouldn't leave work early for me. If I mess up your job with my health, then I should just stay home and not try to work."
Wen Qing looked frustrated, but Wen Ning continued. "One of us has to be able to support the rest of the family, and we both know it isn't me. I like working here, and it's fun, but the only reason they let me do this is because of you. Don't leave early. I'll be ok. I can just rest here."
Wen Qing looked skeptically at how her tall brother was jammed uncomfortably into the tiny sofa. It was the largest one that could fit in the office, but clearly was not enough for a full-grown man to lie down on.
"My apartment is just across the street," Wei Wuxian said. "If Wen Ning was up to it, I could take him there. It would be quieter and more comfortable. I mean, the place isn't much bigger than your office, but it at least has a full length bed he could rest on."
Wen Ning opened his mouth to object, but Wen Qing talked over him.
"He can't be left alone. Sometimes he has seizures."
Wei Wuxian shrugged. "It's not like I have a job to get to or anything. I can hang out in the apartment and brainstorm ways to save up enough for a phone or a laptop so I can have some actual contact information to leave the next time I try to apply for a job."
Wen Ning looked over at Wei Wuxian. "You didn't get the job?"
Wei Wuxian found it a lot easier to not be upset with his failed interview in the fact of Wen Ning's much more serious health issues. "They need people with references and publications and certifications for a position like that. But it's fine. Maybe we'll be able to publish the food preservation talisman research we've been working on!"
Wen Ning's face brightened up. "Yes! Maybe if I just rest for a few minutes, I could—"
"No," both Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing said simultaneously.
Wen Qing sent Wei Wuxian a grateful look.
"A day or two won't matter. Just rest, and then we'll figure out how to publish this or take it to the hospital and see if they can use it," Wei Wuxian said.
Wen Qing paused for a moment, then called someone on her office phone.
"Can you bring one of the loaner phones to my office? …. Yes, it's for the current core study…. Yes, I will sign for it."
She ended the call and looked at Wei Wuxian.
"Since I know you're not going to go at the pace I've told you to on your recovery, we can at least give you a phone so that you can call me if you experience any strange symptoms, and log your daily physical and cultivation activity directly, rather than writing it down on paper or trying to remember it until our morning sessions."
Wei Wuxian looked at her blankly for a moment. Wen Qing sighed and rolled her eyes at him.
"And so if you happen to also use the phone to watch a movie or check job listings or set up a fucking email address , then that would not be my business, as long as you also log your activity daily into the system."
Wei Wuxian grinned. Now he wouldn't have to choose between saving up for a set of cultivation robes or a phone. The laptop he would figure out later, but as long as he had access to the internet, he could probably get around it.
"Thanks, Qing Jie!"
The glare she sent him could have melted solid granite, but Wei Wuxian only laughed. "There aren't a lot of minutes on the phone, so stick to wifi wherever possible."
Wei Wuxian saluted her. Honestly, all he cared about was having a cell number that he could set up a Weibo account with and log onto some of the online cultivation forums to look around for jobs.
"Alright, Ning-didi. Let's get you home so you don't have to be all scrunched up on this tiny sofa," Wei Wuxian said. He turned to look at Wen Qing, his face turning serious. "Is there anything I need for him? Any medication or things I should look out for?"
Wen Qing shook her head, her face neutral, but her eyes were sad. "It just has to run its course. As long as he is quiet and rests, it should pass in a few hours. Uncle Four will come and pick him up."
"What about food?" Wei Wuxian asked, directing his question this time to Wen Ning as well.
"He can eat if he's hungry, but usually he just sleeps. Just don't leave him alone to go get food. If he has a seizure, he can fall. They usually only last a minute or two."
Wei Wuxian nodded, smiling gently down at Wen Ning. He wished there was more he could do. But at least he could give Wen Ning a comfortable and private place to rest.
One of the hospital staff walked in with a cell phone and charger.
"Does it have a SIM card in it?" Wen Qing asked, taking the phone.
"Yes. Dr. Wen. Everything is there. It's set up to connect to the hospital wifi-as well as the wifi in the patient apartments."
Wen Qing nodded, then handed the satchel to Wei Wuxian.
"Get out of here. Wen Ning, keep your ringer on. Uncle Four or I will call you when he's on his way to get you." She turned to Wei Wuxian. "Also, is there any reason why the Jin would be reaching out to my uncle looking for you?"
Wei Wuxian stilled. Shijie .
She must have found out that Wei Wuxian was expelled from the sect. Wei Wuxian had no other ties to the Jin.
"I… Jiang Yanli. She married Jin Zixuan. She might be looking for me."
Wen Qing nodded slowly. "No one but Madam Yu knows the full name of the doctor who came and removed you. All they would know is that it was a Wen doctor. My name would have sent up too many red flags."
"So they're looking for me in Qishan," Wei Wuxian said.
Wen Qing nodded. "I would guess that the Qishan cultivation hospital there has had a few inquiries looking for you. But they would not disclose if you were a patient or not, even if you were there."
"So they escalated to Wen Ruohan to try to get around that," Wei Wuxian said. It explained why the inquiry had come from the Jin. Madam Yu would certainly not have reached out, nor would she have allowed Jiang Cheng to. No one else within the Jiang was at a high enough level to put in a personal request to Wen Ruohan. So Shijie must have asked her husband to send a request from the Jin instead.
"Did he… tell them where I am?" Wei Wuxian asked.
Wen Qing snorted. "He told them it wasn't his job to keep track of the patients at every hospital, nor to follow-up on the location of unaffiliated cultivators."
Wei Wuxian felt a part of him relax. He wanted to see Jiang Yanli. He missed her so much . But she would want to help him, and that would get her in trouble. Madam Yu could still make her life very difficult, and Jin Guangshan was not the nicest father-in-law to try to manage. Shijie didn't really have money or resources of her own. She had married into the Jin. So any help she gave him would put her in debt to her new family.
He would contact her, but he would wait until he wasn't in such a desperate circumstance that she would put herself at risk to help him.
"Ok.. I… thanks for letting me know."
Wen Qing sighed as her phone alarm went off, letting her know she was late for rounds.
"I need to go. But call me if you need anything," Wen Qing said.
Wei Wuxian nodded, then set about helping Wen Ning carefully get to his feet. One of the nurses came in.
"We have a wheelchair that we use for helping him get down to the street," she said, helping Wen Ning into it. "Since you're still going to be on hospital property, it's ok for him to use it to get to your place. Just have someone return it when you're done."
They made it to Wei Wuxian's place with no incident, but Wen Ning was completely exhausted by the short trip. Wei Wuxian helped him into the bed, keeping the room lights dim so he could rest.
It was the first time Wei Wuxian had had anyone in his tiny, temporary home, and there was something comforting about the sounds of another person's breathing and soft movements in his space.
Once Wen Ning was settled, Wei Wuxian turned on the phone. The first thing he did was to set up an email address, and then set up a Weibo account. WiFiDownForWhatever . As his description, he put: Rogue cultivator and Talismans Expert with experience, not pedigree.
Not that Lan Wangji would ever see it, but he needed to add at least a little bit of a fuck you for his own sanity. He hadn't really been on Weibo much when he was with the Jiang. He hoped that he didn't need to enter the access code on the phone with every login, or he wasn't sure what would happen if the lab needed the phone back in a few days. But that was a problem for Future Wei Ying.
For the moment, he at least wanted to be able to search about how easy or hard it would be to find cultivation work (particularly involving talismans, since that was about all he could handle until he built his core back). He spent the next hour searching through the largest cultivation forums, learning more about the external cultivation world than he ever had with the Jiang.
It was not very encouraging. Most of the discussion of cultivation work was run out of the sects, and showcasing their own disciples. There weren't a lot of 'help wanted' signs.
He was able to find a few independent cultivators (the modern name for rogue cultivators, as the older term had at some point been deemed derogatory… Wei Wuxian thought the original term sounded way more fun and would definitely be referring to himself by that) like Xaio Xingchen, but they were few and far between. And they all seemed to have at least connections to the major sects, even if they didn't belong to them. Xiao Xingchen, for example, did a lot of work for the GusuLan cultivation hospital. He worked other places as well, but he had a steady source of work lined up there, along with whatever he also got from his website.
Given that Wei Wuxian was banished from the Jiang and had pissed off the Lan, and working with the Jin would put his sister in an awkward position, he didn't have a lot of options left. The Wen and the Nie were large clans, but also not really known for intermingling with those outside of their sect. They weren't quite as isolated as the Jiang, but definitely not as open to inter-mixing as the Lan were, with their hospital and academy, or the Jin were with their… money hungriness.
He looked up the profiles of the non-affiliated cultivators, trying to figure out how they were able to make a living without the backing of the sect. Most seemed to have had either a famous mentor, like Xiao Xingchen did, or they had a really famous night-hunt that earned them recognition from other sects and in the public spotlight.
None of them had been banished from a main sect. But Wei Wuxian had always been about carving his own path. He would give it a shot. It wasn't like he had a lot of other options.
Wei Wuxian wasn't very familiar with the different categories of awards that cultivators could win, since the Jiang hadn't participated in a lot of things outside of their own territory. But it was easy to search. Some were civilian awards, like 'most eligible bachelor' (he had to suppress an annoyed snort at the sight of Lan Wangji's name listed second on the list, second to someone who looked like basically his friendlier twin) or 'most bamf! cultivator' (Nie Mingjue was currently first on that list, followed by Wen Zhuliu and then Lan Wangji) , but those wouldn't lead to any jobs.
There were some links he stumbled across that revealed a whole underbelly of civilians who were really into the idea of fucking (or being fucked by) cultivators. Wei Wuxian filed that knowledge away emotionally as somewhere between hilarious and terrifying. They even had a CILF list, which took Wei Wuxian a second to realize what it stood for. Lan Wangji was first on that list, which Wei Wuxian somehow instinctively knew the man would hate, if he was aware of it.
Looking at the photo they had next to Lan Wangji's name, showing him holding his sword out while glaring death at something off screen, Wei Wuxian could understand the sentiment, even if the guy was an uptight asshole.
Not that he was at all interested. Just because the guy had really amazing qi compatibility with him and a golden core that was hung like a horse didn't mean Wei Wuxian had to do anything about it.
Sure, he hadn't found any other cultivator that had felt… right aside from Lan Wangji, but that was just the qi compatibility talking. And maybe the alcohol. But Wei Wuxian was more than fine building his core up the hard way. He'd done it once, he could do it again.
He turned his attention back to his search. He needed to find a way to get noticed for work without the pedigree or backing that other cultivators had. The only other path seemed to be rogue cultivators who managed to gain recognition from the Cultivation Council.
There were awards that individual sects gave their members (usually these awards were for use of their specific cultivation techniques or unique spiritual tools), but those didn't come with money, and he wouldn't be eligible for them anyway.
But the ones that really seemed to open doors were the awards given by the Cultivation Council. Those were harder to earn, because they seemed to be a lot more merit/fact-based (though there were forums that debated 'padding' of scores by some of the larger sects particularly the Jin and the Wen). But that could actually play to Wei Wuxian's advantage.
He scrolled through the list, looking for ones he could maybe bag.
Most kills in a year . Not likely, given he didn't have a whole fucking clan feeding him work.
Most night hunts completed in a year . Unlikely for the same reason. He noticed Lan Wangji's name under this one as well.
There was also a list of the Top 5 Most Challenging Creatures killed each year, and which cultivator completed the kill. Wei Wuxian paused on this one. This could be possible. Tricky without a fully functional core but possible.
He clicked on it, to see what sort of kills qualified, and how submissions were made.
Video evidence was usually required, along with proof of the creature's permanent death. There was a video library of past winners and recent submissions. His hand froze when he saw Jiang Cheng and Jiang Fengmain (posthumously) nominated for the nest of monkey yaos that had killed Jiang Fengmian and destroyed Jiang Cheng's core.
Wei Wuxian's hand was shaking when he clicked the link to the video.
Unsurprisingly, it was not the feed from his camera. It was from one of the other disciples.It showed Jiang Cheng and Jiang Fengmian heading into the ravine, and killing the first yao that had appeared. It cut to the end, where the burned and severed bodies of the yaos were strewn about the path. Below it was documentation of the number of cultivators, civilians, and civilian authorities that had been killed by the nest prior to the Jiang intervention.
There were comments congratulating them on a successful hunt, and also comments asking for the full video as proof of the kill. Someone from the Jiang headquarters had replied that the cameras had been damaged by the heat of the fire that was used to kill the creatures, and the footage was not recoverable, followed by a terse message that it would also be in poor taste to show the video of Sect Leader Jiang losing his life.
Wei Wuxian stared at the thumbnail of the video, not sure if he was still breathing. So many emotions tangled inside him. The remembered fear of the moment he knew the hunt was going sideways. The panic when he saw Jiang Cheng and Jiang Fengmian go down. The grief when he knew Jiang Fengmian was dead. The guilt when he hadn't been able to prevent it.
But also… there was anger that they had edited all evidence of Wei Wuxian from the video.
It would never have occurred to Wei Wuxian to try to make his mark by broadcasting the death of Jiang Fengmian. But to have Madam Yu outright lie about who killed the nest of yaos…
Wei Wuxian drew a slow, shaky breath. He set the phone down. He'd look through the rest of the awards categories later.
He really needed a fucking drink.
"Wei Laoshi?"
Wei Wuxian startled, temporarily having forgotten Wen Ning was in his apartment.
"Ah… sorry," Wei Wuxian said, fisting his hands and placing them on the table to try to hide the fact that they were still shaking. "I hope I didn't wake you up. How are you feeling?"
"B-better. But you look… not ok?"
Wei Wuxian forced a smile. "I'm fine. Just learning how hard it's going to be for me to get work as a rogue cultivator."
Wen Ning looked skeptical, but didn't argue. His eyes scanned the tiny room, landing on the small desk and the camera sitting upon it. Wei Wuxian didn't have much in the way of possessions, so it was one of the few items out.
"Wow. That's a really nice c-camera!" Wen Ning said politely.
He couldn't have known that the camera was attached to the memory of the worst day in Wei Wuxian's life that he was currently struggling with. Suddenly, Wei Wuxian couldn't stand the thought of it being in the same room as him anymore. It was likely broken. It wouldn't have been the first camera that had gotten destroyed by a taste of zidian .
"Yeah, I think it's dead. I was going to just throw it out."
"Oh, no! It's a really high-end camera. I m-might be able to fix it," Wen Ning offered.
Wei Wuxian decided that, as long as it was out of his apartment, he didn't care if it was in the garbage or with Wen Ning. He walked over and picked it up, the hard, smooth surface of the camera making his skin itch with the current memories that were rushing through him. He handed it to Wen Ning, glad to be rid of it.
"Sure. Why not? If you manage to fix it, you can have it."
Wen Ning's eyes opened wide. "Oh, n-no! It's yours and you'll need it once you start night hunting."
Wei Wuxian hesitated. Any hunts entered into any category required video evidence of the hunt and the kill. He would need a camera. But if the camera worked, he would probably need to return it to the Jiang. There was no way Madam Yu would have let him keep something that valuable. The thought of having to interact with her in any way at all had him feeling nauseous.
He sat down on the tiny two-seat sofa. Wen Ning watched him, looking upset.
A knock on the door drew both their attention.
"Sorry," Wen Ning said. "That's Popo. She texted and said she was coming over to check on me. I hope it's ok."
Wei Wuxian opened the door to find an elderly woman holding a large bag which—based on the amazing smell wafting from it—appeared to contain food, and a small child who hid behind her legs as soon as Wei Wuxian had opened the door, and appeared to be around four or five.
"Wei Wuxian?" the elderly woman asked, stepping into the small apartment.
"Um, yes! Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian," Wei Wuxian greeted, bowing slightly at Wen Ning's Popo. She had an air of brusque kindness and competence that reminded him of Wen Qing. "Wen Ning is doing better, but he's still laying down," Wei Wuxian said, his arms automatically wrapping around the bag that was thrust into them.
"You can call me Popo. I brought food," she eyed Wei Wuxian up and down, critically. "It looks like you could use it. Do they not feed patients in the hospital anymore?"
"Hi, Popo," Wen Ning said, starting to sit up to greet her.
The old woman made shushing motions with her hands.
"You stay lying down, A-Ning. Rest until your uncle gets here to take you home," Wen Popo turned back to Wei Wuxian. "Do you have a tea kettle?"
Before Wei Wuxian could reply, the child peeked out at him from behind Wen Popo, his eyes wide. "Dancing gege?"
Wei Wuxian and Popo exchanged confused looks.
"A-Yuan. Do you know this gege?" Wen Popo asked, surprised. "A-Yuan is usually very shy with strangers. He keeps mostly to family."
The small boy was still staring at Wei Wuxian, but he looked excited rather than wary. "He does the pretty dances in the park! I watch him sometimes."
"When are you in the park without me?" Wen Popo asked, looking stern.
The boy ducked back behind her legs, realizing that he might have just gotten himself in trouble. Wei Wuxian thought back to the times he'd felt someone watching him, but had never seen anyone there.
"You watch me practice my sword forms?" Wei Wuxian asked.
A-Yuan looked up at Wen Popo, then back at Wei Wuxian. "You don't have a sword when you do them."
"Ah. That's because I have to build my strength up before I can do it with my sword. But I want to be ready for when I'm strong enough, so I practice every afternoon."
He looked over at Wen Popo, who sighed.
"A-Yuan is supposed to take his nap in the afternoon," she said, exasperatedly.
"Naps are boring. I like to watch Dancing gege! He's pretty when he does the dances."
Wei Wuxian crouched down by A-Yuan. One of the things he had missed the most was interacting with the younger disciples back in Lotus Cove. A-Yuan was still a year or two younger than when new disciples started cultivation lessons, but he had the same spark of curiosity of Wei Wuxian's former shidis.
"I can show you some of the dances if you want."
A-Yuan's face lit up, his mouth opening to agree, but Wei Wuxian continued.
"But I'll only show you some of the forms if you promise not to sneak out when you're supposed to be napping."
Wen Popo sighed. "Sometimes I get tired after a long morning of running around after this one, and I take a nap when he does. If you're serious about it, it would be a help if he could spend a couple of afternoons with you a week."
Wei Wuxian looked back at A-Yuan. "What do you think, Yuan-er? Do you want to learn the dances with me?"
"Yes!"
"Then you have to promise not to sneak out from Popo anymore, ok?" Wei Wuxian continued.
Wen Yuan sighed, but didn't seem too upset about the compromise.
"Can we go now?" Wen Yuan asked.
"We need to eat first," Wen Popo said firmly. "And I want to talk to A-Ying about this talisman that he's been working with A-Ning on."
Wei Wuxian froze for a moment. It had been so long since anyone had called him so familiarly, like family. He had been trusted by their family to look after Wen Ning, and now he was being trusted with A-Yuan, when he'd only just met them. His tiny apartment, which had always felt so cold and sterile, was filled with warmth and life.
It was not something he had expected to find for a long time. His chest felt warm at the same time it made his throat feel tight. He could belong here. He could find a place with these people he had been slowly getting to know over the past month. He could take care of Wen Ning when he felt unwell at the lab, and he could help teach A-Yuan.
Getting rejected by the Lan somehow no longer felt like the crushing failure it had the day before.
"But I'm not hungry," Wen Yuan was saying, right at the same moment his stomach let out a growl.
Wei Wuxian laughed, swallowing past the lump in his throat. "It sounds like your tummy disagrees with you. You can't do the dances on an empty stomach."
A-Yuan considered it for a moment, then nodded. "We can dance after we eat?" he asked.
Wei Wuxian looked over to Wen Popo, who sighed.
"A-Yuan. Let me talk to A-Ying, then he can take you outside to the park, as long as he's not too tired."
A-Yuan cheered.
They set up the food buffet-style, since there wasn't a table large enough to seat four people in the apartment. Wen Ning and Wen Yuan sat on the small sofa to eat, and Popo and Wei Wuxian sat on the stools at the counter.
"A-Ning showed me the talisman design you have him testing," Popo said as they ate. "He said you were going to offer it to the hospital once you had the testing data done that showed it was safe."
Wei Wuxian nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I don't really know exactly who to talk to at the hospital about that, but it seemed like it would be helpful. Are you interested in talismans?"
Popo hummed. "I used to work in the intellectual property division for the Wen. But I didn't agree with some of the things Wen Ruohan was doing there, so when A-Qing moved here with A-Ning, I retired and came with them."
Wei Wuxian nodded. He didn't know much about intellectual property laws or governance side of cultivation, but it made sense that sects would be protective of their cultivation secrets and techniques.
"I asked him if you'd patented it or registered it with the Cultivation Council, and he said he wasn't sure," Wen Popo said.
Wei Wuxian paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth, then shrugged. "No? I mean it's just a little talisman. I only spent like… not even a day on it, really. And I think patenting stuff costs money, doesn't it?"
Popo looked at him like he was crazy. "A patent only costs 500¥."
"That's my food budget for a week. And besides, if I patented every random talisman I came up with, I'd be in debt for the rest of my life."
Popo's gaze sharpened. "You have more?"
"Yeah? I mean, it's always been sort of a hobby. Madam Yu hated it. Said it was a waste of paper. But some of them really helped on night hunts, especially the lure flag and spirit binding array."
"Lure flag. And a spirit binding array," Wen Popo repeated. "And none of them are patented or registered?"
"No?"
The old woman sighed. "Child. You have so much genius, and no sense at all. Go get them, and let me look through and see what we have."
"All of them?" Wei Wuxian asked.
"How many are there?" Wen Popo asked.
"I mean, some are variants on others, but at least a hundred. Maybe more? Not all of them are useful, though. Some I just made up for pranks, or just to see if it would work."
Wen Popo shook her head in exasperation.
"Show me. Honestly, you don't have enough money for food or clothing, and you're sitting on a hundred unpatented talismans?" Wen Popo turned and shot a glare at Wen Ning. "Did you know about this?"
Wen Ning's glance flickered to Wei Wuxian, then back to Wen Popo. "I-I… s-sort of? I knew that Wei Laoshi had other talismans. But not… so many."
Wei Wuxian dutifully went to the qiankun bag and pulled out the large stack of his talisman designs, along with a few other random inventions he had been working on. He set the thick stack down in front of Wen Popo.
"Good heavens," she said, looking at the thick stack of disorganized papers and notes. "This is going to take a while. Why don't you take A-Yuan outside for a bit and let me see what we've got here."
Wei Wuxian looked at her, then at Wen Ning, who shrugged helplessly. A-Yuan jumped up, having heard the magic word 'outside'.
"Let's go, Xian-gege!"
Between the excitement of A-Yuan's tugs on his wrist and Wen Popo's stern look, Wei Wuxian let himself be dragged to the door, not exactly sure what was being set in motion. It felt inexorable, like the tide.
"I need some quiet time to be able to look through this all, and see where to start. We'll talk about it when you come back. Take your phone, in case I have questions."
With those instructions, Wei Wuxian and Wen Yuan were banished from the apartment to go play in the sun, letting Wen Ning rest and Wen Popo read.