The quartet sat around a campfire, Jin Chan biting his nails, Jiang Liwei distributing endless stocks of bottles of Lotus Lure he had brought along to ease their minds.

"Jin Chan, trust me we'll be alright, goddammit, quit with the nail-biting. Have this."

"Tsk," Jin Chan snatched the bottle and downed half of it in one gulp. "Of course we'll be alright, d-uh! Not like we can't handle a lousy she-fox!"

"Then what are you worried for?" Nie Xiyuan smirked.

"I'm not freaking worried, just... just... Aish, Xuanji-shijie's letter to Jin Ling made it sound like the she-fox is invincible or something."

"Well, we can't kill her, she is immortal."

"Exactly," Jin Chan nodded. "I'm scared of that bit. I mean, we can't kill her. So what do we do? Fight a bit, know her skills, then run away? That sounds awfully cowardly."

"Ah, you're scared of the shame," Jiang Liwei chuckled.

"It's all we can do, and it's all we were given to do, so no need for feeling ashamed about it. We aren't running away, we're completing the mission: which is returning to report. There's a difference," Lan Hao grinned.

"Smart," Nie Xiyuan laughed.

"Argh, whatever," Jin Chan rolled his eyes and gulped the rest of the bottle slowly.

While Jin Chan sat on the grass opposite from Jiang Liwei, Nie Xiyuan and Lan Hao lay on the grass, staring upwards.

"So..." Xiyuan broke the silence. "What do we do now?"

"Sit around and wait for the target to show up," Jiang Liwei nodded.

"Boring," Lan Hao mumbled.

"You sounded like Hanguang-Jun," Liwei tossed his head back and laughed.

"But never mind, I'll count stars for now," Lan Hao grinned. "Ey, Xiyuan, look."

"What?"

"Up there," Lan Hao, one hand bent under his head, one hand pointing up to the midnight blue, smiled up at the sky. "Look along my finger."

Nie Xiyuan lay down properly and shuffled closer towards him. He bent his head towards Lan Hao's shoulder and looked up along his index finger.

"See what I see?"

"What?"

"Aish, such a dense idiot. Watch. That star, connected to that," he drew a line across the air, connecting two bright stars. "And then to that," he went on drawing a figure. "And that, and this one here, and that bright one... See the shape?"

"Ahhh," Xiyuan nodded. "Beast with devil's horns?"

"Yes, your Qinghe beast, haha!"

"Fascinating."

Jiang Liwei elbowed Jin Chan in the waist.

"OW! WHAT THE–"

"Sh! You're disturbing them!" Liwei grinned. "It's sinful to break such romantic and happy moments, you know."

"Tch, sinful? Then your sect leader should already be in hell by now."

"For what?"

"For barging in between Hanguang-Jun and Senior Wei all the time!"

"Hahahaha, that's true. But shhh! No shouting, keep it low, it's not everyday you get to watch something like this," Liwei grinned.

"Your Lotus Pier's full of it."

"That's accurate. Sect Leader and Zewu-Jun, Qiao-shijie and Baozhai-shijie, goodness, we're full to the brim! You must be upset, hehe."

"Jin Ling's hardly in the mood for any of that anyway. He's planning to kick that Elder out."

"The old bastard who was imprisoned for the brothel scene? Mingxia's..."

"No. Not her father. Absolutely NOT."

"Okay, okay, Jin Ling's her father, I agree. But yeah? Him?"

"Mn."

"Oh wow, that's cool! One less pain-in-the-behind in his bunch of useless Elders."

"Er... Liwei... we might want to move to another place," Jin Chan scrunched up his nose.

"Nah, they won't kiss with us around. We'll just turn that way," Liwei pulled him around by the collar.

"Facing the forest? Really?"

"We're just on night-guard, should Aria Verduria come from the forest," Jiang Liwei smirked and oscillated the wine bottle in his hand casually.

"Haha, good one." 

**********

And thus they waited for two hours, by when Jin Chan had almost fallen asleep.

Not that was sleep was something easily allowed by a demoness ready to kill...

Sitting there, gazing into the forest, Jin Chan heard a slow and low sound reaching across, drifting into his ears, floating down into his soul.

"Holy crap!" Jiang Liwei shot up onto his feet at the sound of the music. "Oi, get up!"

At the sound of his shouts cutting through the entrancing harmony, Jin Chan snapped back to reality and stood. "Goodness, was that her charm?"

"Sounded like it," Lan Hao stood.

"It caught me!" Jin Chan gaped at the woods.

"Almost got me too," Jiang Liwei wiped his brow.

"Looks like my headband protects against it, it didn't affect me at all... Xiyuan? Xiyuan!"

The three ran over to him and shook him. "Xiyuan!"

"Goddammit, wake up!"

"Hao, use your headband!"

Lan Hao gulped. But without hesitating, he stripped off his headband and tied it around Nie Xiyuan's hand. Something in the protection the headband gave woke the boy up and he stared at their shocked faces. "W– What's wrong?"

"Idiot, you almost got enchanted!" Jin Chan whacked his head.

"Oh... sorry... let's go into the forest, find it, finish the task off."

"Yes, let's."

"Er... A-Hao, this..."

"Keep it, I don't want you falling for her songs again." With that, Lan Hao unsheathed his blue sword and marched into the woods.

"Nah, what's with the face? It's yours to be, anyway," Jiang Liwei grinned. Snorting at Xiyuan's flushed face, Liwei and Jin Chan followed him in. 

**********

"Ooooh, how suuu-weeeeeet! Four cute and pretty little boys! I could get a whole men-harem for myself with you cutie-pies here," Aria Verduria laughed, strand of mint blonde hair twirling around a finger. "Well? What brought you here, miei amori?"

"Who's your cutie-pie!" Jiang Liwei slashed his sword at her.

"Easy, easy on the nails!" Aria spun back and leant against a tree, one gleaming bare leg bent, foot pushing into the bark. She rubbed her fingernails on her silky robes. "It took a lot of time to tame them!"

"Clearly you haven't tamed yourself," Nie Xiyuan smirked and ran at her, sabre raised. His sabre crashed into the trunk of the tree, chopping into it harshly, missing her by an inch from her head. He rammed his fist into the other side of the bark.

Aria was not the least devastated to find her self so easily and abruptly trapped between a sabre and a brawny arm.

Jin Chan nodded to himself from behind. "That's right. Now she'll have to use her powers."

Right he was.

Aria grinned smugly and flourished her right hand in a swishing motion, drawing something up from underneath there feet and then slamming her palm at Xiyuan's chest. Creepers shot up out of the ground and wrapped around Xiyuan's torso. When Nie Xiyuan looked down at his bound chest, Aria Verduria raised her hand and clenched her fist with force. All at once, the vines around Xiyuan's torso began tightening, compressing harder and harder into the flesh and bone, veins popping out.

Jin Chan and Lan Hao rolled towards the tree from left and right, swords aimed at the immortal demonic beast. Using the distraction of a strangled Nie Xiyuan, she shoved the arm away from her head, and darted upwards into the treetops. Both Jin and Lan swords only just missed, one cutting her leg harshly, and the other cutting one of her tails clean off.

"Why you!" She shrieked and leapt down from another tree years away, right behind Jiang Liwei, grabbing his neck and slinging her arm around it. "Well? Either I kill this friend of yours or you stop!" 

"Kill me? Why you stupid woman," Jiang Liwei chuckled. Without sparing a single second, he grabbed her elbow by his neck, twisted her arm a full reflex angle clockwise, making her scream. Once the arm was away from his neck, he grabbed her arm by the upper muscles an twirled her around, slamming her onto the ground, turning her arm around to hook behind her back. Screaming in pain, she scowled at the grass her face was shoved into.

"LIWEI!" Lan Hao pointed to his feet.

Jiang Liwei looked down to find trailing plants reading up his knees, having swathed around his legs completely. A green cocoon. He was about to enter a green cocoon.

He was forced to let go of the she-fox and dash his sword at his feet, cutting off the endless vines. Nie Xiyuan, having chopped off his own trap with his sabre, ran over and swiped his sabre under Liwei's feet, cutting off the vines from their roots, letting them collapse. 

"Thanks," Liwei patted his shoulder and they looked around for the others. "Where are they?"

"Ruochan and A-Hao must have taken that wench somewhere else. We'll go down there," Xiyuan pointed to a point in the thicket where the bushes and trees appeared separated, letting in a ray of light. Basking in the moonlight was a massive clearing, to which the other two had lured her. "Perfect."

"Indeed. Less creepy creepers in a clearing." Wielding his sword higher, Jiang Liwei joined in the battle. Nie Xiyuan followed.

While Aria attacked with her remaining eight tails and a sharp vine or two, the four men lashed out at her with their swords and sabre. She couldn't use the vines to trap them here, but there were just enough to use as her own lances and spears. Dodge. Fend. Slice. Clash. Block. Duck. Cut. Lash! 

At least five of the tails were injured and Aria's agony was increasing by the minute.

And so was her self-control dropping.

None of her charms were working on Nie Xiyuan because of the headband wrapped around his wrist. But the other three were still viable options...

Somewhere into the fight, the four began to hear a soft melody floating through the air, cutting in between the clangs of their metal with the tough creeping plants. Caught completely unawares, Jin Chan was the first to go down. Entranced by the first few seconds of the tune, his sword clattered to the ground, arm fell to his side.

Next was Lan Hao.

Jiang Liwei was closest to Xiyuan, but by the time Xiyuan had undone the knot and reached out to tie the headband to Liwei to see if he could save him, Liwei had already been swept away.

"Tsk, I still don't get why it's not working on you."

Xiyuan loured at her. "None of your business. Release the from the spell!" He pointed his sabre to the three statues and swung it around to point towards her neck. "Or else!"

"You? Kill me? What a joke! Silly idiot, I'm immortal!"

"No, not kill you, but I'll most gladly cut off the rest of your Nine-Tailed Fox's glory." And with that, he sprinted towards her, nothing but a streak of grey zooming across the greenery at her.

Aria sent up vines to trap him and play with him until she walked around him. While battling the creepers blocking his view, Xiyuan sensed her running past him towards his friends, so he spun around, dicing the vines and two of her tails in a single swing of his sabre.

Aria Verduria ran a few feet ahead and stopped beside the three hypnotised ones, clutching at her back where her tail bone was burning with the pain of having lost three of its protuberances so far. "You..." she growled. "Who are you? How are you this good with your attacks? Beating them all?" She frowned, heaving deep breaths to calm her pounding pulse.

"Me? Not much of a difference," Xiyuan shrugged, wagging his sabre as he walked closer to her. "We're all Head Disciples of our four sects."

"Impossible! You must be something higher! Not meaning to pry, but it is an honour to battle someone so skilled," she winked honestly.

"Deputy General Nie," Xiyuan smirked back, tossing his sabre into his left hand and raising his right hand behind his back, swiftly drawing out a golden talisman behind his back.

"I see," Aria nodded. Her fight-or-flight mode was screaming towards fleeing, but she wouldn't acquiesce. Not so easily.

The one hand rubbing her back — seemingly — swirled behind her, calling up more vines from behind their backs, so that Xiyuan couldn't see.

At the exact same time, both secretly moving hands shot out from behind their backs. Aria's pale hand raised into the air, fist compressed, as vines wrapped around Lan Hao's neck.

Xiyuan's bronze and calloused hand spun threads of beautiful and deft Golden Thread that firmly wrapped around the fox's body, tying her arms to her body. But by the time he was to reach the feet, he saw Lan Hao falling to the ground, lips blue as the night sky, face white as a sheet. Gasping in horror, he sprinted to Hao's side, watching as the other two slowly came out of their trances because Aria was losing focus under the pressure of the Golden Thread. 

"Great job with that, Xiyuan!" Jiang Liwei sighed, patting his chest with relief. "Were we caught under the spell? Sorry– A-Hao!"

"A-Hao!" Jin Chan knelt on the grass beside Xiyuan. "What happened to him?" 

"I... could you help remove these?" Xiyuan pointed to Lan Hao's wrist. Thick and touch green vines encircled the purple wrist. Purple, because the vines were squeezing the living daylights out of the man by the pressure it was putting on the radial artery. "Can't use sabre, will cut skin."

Realising the tension Nie Xiyuan was under by hearing him speaking incomplete sentences, Jin Chan signalled to Jiang Liwei to see to the fox. Nie Xiyuan produced a gap between the vines and the wrist's skin. Jin Chan took out his own sword, which was several time thinner than a Nie's sabre, and carefully slipped it into the gap. He pushed upwards to open up the gap a bit more. While Xiyuan held it open with all his strength, because the vines were just too insistent, he turned his sword by a measly twenty degrees, just enough for the sharper edge of his blade to cut into the veins. Slice! He pushed his sword upwards and slit open the vines.

"You think you can stop me by tying me up? Ha! Cowards! FIGHT ME!" Aria Verduria shouted and wiggled her hands, fingers twisting around. Jiang Liwei attacked but the other two and the lifeless Lan were hurled away by hundreds of creepers rising up from the ground. When the three had been kicked away from the field, Aria directed all the veins at Jiang Liwei.

Jiang Liwei gaped at the horrifying sight coming at him. He raised his sword, ready to attack and burn it all down.

A dozen, long, strong vines were thrown at him, aiming to hang him alive. He waved his sword through the vine-shower, and swung his left hand in the air, drawing out letters he knew too well to forget.

Fwoosh!

Every last vine that approached him was turned to ashes under the flare of the fire talisman.

Aria roared, sending in even more than before.

Hundreds of creeper plants, this time. A simple fire talisman wouldn't work.

But it wasn't like Senior Wei had invented talismans against CREEPERS! What now?

Sighing desperately, he raised his sword and another fire talisman ablaze, ready to attack.

Clatter! Clang!

CRASH!

Huge black metal chains wrapped around the vines, dragging them away from the boy, tossing them back into the woods around.

"WEN SHUSHU!" Jin Chan, who had just recovered from the shock to his body of falling down so hard, screamed with relief.

"Anyone hurt?" Wen Ning looked around at them. Liwei was ecstatic to see the chains were already enveloped around the demonic creature's body.

"Shushu, A-Hao..." Liwei pointed to where Xiyuan had just sat up and was lifting Lan Hao up onto his lap.

Wen Ning's mouth dropped open at Lan Hao's state and he turned back to the woman. Just then, she disappeared. Vanished into the air, the chains and Golden Thread tumbling to the ground. She reappeared with a poof beside them.

"Haha! Told you you can't trap me! I'm a demonic beast, yes, but an Immortal, ha! As for that boy..." while Wen Ning attacked her with his chains, she dodged and ducked and teleported all over the place, incessantly prattling. "That bastard there cut off two of my tails. But the fellow's too handsome for me to kill, might as well kill his lover, eh? No need to be surprised, it was clear as water he cared the most for the white lad. Matter of fact, you're all too good-looking, so how about I just get lost? I hate ridding the world of such stellar beauty." She hopped up onto a high branch. "I'll say hello to Master White for you, if I go to the Ghost Realm!"

"WHO said you could run off?" Wen Ning swung a humongous train of iron at her, breaking the branch.

Just as the branch cracked, she shouted, "I did! Sayonara, mi amore! And that includes you too, pretty young man. Shame I prefer girls," she winked at Wen Ning and disappeared again.

Wen Ning let out a breath of relief and retreated his chains. "Xiyuan?"

"Wen Shushu..." Nie Xiyuan stood with Lan Hao in his arms.

"Don't carry him like that. We don't know if he's been attacked with poisonous vines, don't let it get to his heart. Hold him upright."

The other two helped to lift Lan Hao onto Xiyuan's sturdy back.

"Let's go to Cloud Recesses. You three pick up your swords, come soon. I'll go first, get things arranged."

"Thank you, Wen Shushu," Nie Xiyuan mumbled and Wen Ning left. 

***********

The Lan guards at the gates took Lan Hao in and sent him to the infirmary with some other Lans who quickly ran over despite the curfew. The three non-Lans were left stranded outside.

Just when Xiyuan was about to give no damn for anything and just run inside, they heard familiar voices laughing as they walked their way.

"Dada, BOO!"

"Oh come on, A-Xia! I've done Boo with you all day today!"

"Baba, BOO!"

"I'll do it most gladly. Peeka-BOO!"

Squealing giggles roared through the air towards the gates.

"It's them!" Jiang Liwei sighed happily.

"JIN LING! OI!"

"SIZHUI! SIZHUI!"

"Ah?" Lan Sizhui rushed to the gates. "It's you guys! Done with the mission already?"

"LET US IN!" All three shouted.

"Oh just come on in, nobody's prohibit– Hey! Hold up!"

Jin Ling watched as the trio dashed past them towards the Healing Hall. "What's up with them?"

"I think I saw blood on Xiyuan's robes?" Sizhui gulped.

"A-Hao!"

"Mn."

Mingxia in Jin Ling's arms, the two ran as fast as they could to the infirmary. 

***********

"Doctor... Senior Yuanhua please!"

"No, Xiyuan, get out! We need to focus. Come on now, OUT!"

Pouting, Nie Xiyuan shuffled out and shut the door behind him.

"Xiyuan! What happened?" By now, Jingyi, Xiyi, Sizhui, Rulan, Liwei and Ruochan were all gathered outside the infirmary.

"Won't tell me..." Xiyuan slumped onto the ground, sitting on the stairs, head buried in his hands.

"Xiyuan?"

Hearing the dear voice, he fell onto the person's lap, hugging him, trembling, voice quivering. "Senior Wei..."

Wei Wuxian sighed and sat there beside him. "Child, what happened?"

"A-Hao's wrist got wrung by her vines, we don't know if they were poisonous and his artery's possibly damaged, so the doctors won't let him stay inside," Jingyi summed up.

"I see. A-Zhan darling?"

"Mn," Lan Wangji nodded and walked into the Healing Hall to find out more.

Wei Wuxian remained there. "Xiyuan, don't tell me you're crying! You're a Deputy General!"

"Senior Wei bawls all the time," Jiang Liwei crossed his arms.

"Oh come on! You've got to stab me in the back, eh? Xiyuan..."

"It's all my fault."

"Your fault?"

"All my fault," Xiyuan chided himself, sniffing into Wei Wuxian's lap. 

"It's Aria's fault, not yours!"

"But I promised. I swore to protect him and I didn't. If..." Sniff! "If I'd taken more caution, if I'd..." Sniff! "If I'd kept an eye... maybe none of this would have happened..."

"Hey, hey, Deputy General Nie, you should be strong right now, not weeping for nothing! He'll live, trust me, stop worrying–"

"Hmph," Nie Xiyuan smirked bitterly. "What good is being Deputy General Nie if he can't even protect this own boyfriend? Useless," he shook his head, rubbing his raw nose on the black robes.

"Pfft!"

"S– Senior Wei?"

"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"

"Senior Wei?" Xiyuan looked up to find Wei Wuxian doubling up with laughter.

"Hahahahahahahahahaha!"

"What is everyone laughing for?" He looked around to see them all sniggering and roaring with laughter.

"So things have escalated that well, haven't they, pal?" Xiyi slapped his back. "Glad to hear!"

"Huh?"

"You didn't hear what you said?" Jin Ling grinned.

"What?"

"What good is being Deputy General Nie if he can't even protect this own boyfriend?" Wei Wuxian grinned. "BOYFRIEND. You said that, not me, don't gawk at me!"

"I... Well, I wasnt't lying!"

"Hahahahahahahahahaha!"

"Aish, stop it!"

"You'd never have admitted it before this!" Jiang Liwei exclaimed.

"Well, it's a fact. Near-loss never fails to unite two desirous hearts."

"Mn."

"Eh, A-Zhan, you agree?" Wei Wuxian smiled up at Lan Wangji who had just returned.

"Mn."

"What did Yuanhua say?"

"He..." Lan Zhan gulped. "Sizhui."

"Father?"

Lan Wangji leant in and whispered something in his ear.

"AH?"

"Do it."

"Y– Yes, Father..." Sizhui gulped and walked away.

Leaving the others flabbergasted, and leaving his husband to see to the distraught Xiyuan, Lan Zhan returned to the Healing Hall.

All stared at one another. None but Wei Wuxian had caught the words.

'Sizhui, go to the Library. Forbidden section. Fourth rack, fifth shelf from the bottom. Medicine book on a particular topic. Bring it.'

Forbidden section? Was the case that severe? He reached out to his husband. A-Zhan? A-Zhan darling?

I'm here, A-Ying.

A-Zhan, what's going on? I won't tell the kids.

He could hear Lan Zhan sighing. Yuanhua's saying Hao might die. Wen Ning's not willing to relent. Hence the forbidden book. I know you heard.

Darling knows me best. But... die... once Zhang Huli sent her lackeys to free the Lius from the Lan prisons and Lan Hao nearly died. This time she sent Aria and once again... Huli must have some persisting-through-lifetimes grudge on him! A debt to pay off from a past life!

Superstitions.

Oi! I'm just saying! Fine, fine, you get on with helping. Call me if you need me!

No need. No need of turmeric paste today.

Wei Ying gasped. The only medical thing Wei Ying knew of was turmeric paste from his Shijie. Why you Lan Zhan!

Lan Zhan had cut off the connection to focus.

Grumbling to himself, Wei Wuxian hugged Nie Xiyuan closer and signalled to the others to bring water from somewhere for the weak ones who had just returned from the fight.