Wouldn't You

In a further blow to Gusu Lan’s “no pets” rule, the senior Lan in charge of landscaping had reached out to Wen Ning and asked, very diffidently, if he, or rather, Rosehip, would be willing to do a favour for Cloud Recesses.

It turned out that there was a small encroachment of poison ivy that had been allowed to reestablish a foothold on the outer reaches of Gusu, in a ravine, after Gusu was rebuilt.

“I suppose my old master must have taken care of it regularly without my knowing, but… well, I was so young when the Wen burned everything,” she said, sounding like Wei Wuxian usually did when he remembered that libraries were burnt.

Landscaping secrets are the least of what has been lost in the fire, Wen Ning did not say.

So Wen Ning carefully carries Rosehip up the mountain and down the ravine while her leg is healing, and allows her to graze on poison ivy once a week. He’s not at risk personally, but he does try to avoid touching it in case he transfers it to some more susceptible creature.

He once passed Grandmaster Lan while carrying Rosehip up the stairs, and the old master had given him a flat stare that Wen Ning felt showed an unnecessary lack of humour at what must have been a rather comical scene.

He waggled the fingers of the hand under the goat’s rump in a small wave, but either the Grandmaster hadn’t seen his hand under Rosehip’s tail, or he decided it didn’t deserve a response.

The next year, though, when he leads Rosehip up on a rope, with her kids, apparently having acquired a taste for the toxic plant in the womb, bounding after her, he sees the Grandmaster crack a smile.