The Wens had arrived at the Cloud Recesses with little warning and considerable pomp. The worst of them, Wen Chao, had departed as soon as he'd delivered his mockery – not a moment too late, in Jiang Yanli's opinion – but he'd left many of his kin behind. Most were simply servants or almost so, there to wait on the higher-status clan members hand and foot, but there were two members of the inner sect: Wen Ning and Wen Qing, brother and sister.
There was something seriously off with them. Like the fact that Wen Qing spent every moment not in classes wandering the back of the Lan sect's mountain.
This intense suspiciousness was what found Jiang Yanli slinking behind Wen Qing and following her off the paths. She'd observed Wen Qing poke around the waterfall often enough, but whatever she sought she must not have found, for today she left the waterfall alone in favor of setting off deeper into the forest.
Jiang Yanli followed. It might not have been wise – surely defense of the Cloud Recesses against spies was the job of the Lans, rather than their guests – but she burned with the desire to know just what Wen Qing was looking for.
It had been cloudy when they'd set out. The pine trees rose high and their needles thickened into an impenetrable roof. The gloom left Jiang Yanli's mind much too much to play with.
She'd played at tracking, had night-hunted a bit and had hunted down her brothers from more hidey holes than she could count. The forest was alive around her. She knew nothing major should have made its way past the wards of the Cloud Recesses, but she still jumped at every imagined jerk of shadow.
The forest grew ever more silent around them, hush as if waiting for danger. Wen Qing continued on and thus Jiang Yanli behind her.
There was little reason for Wen Qing to go this far in. Jiang Yanli knew, too, that she should turn back, maybe alert the Lans to Wen Qing's intrusions, but she was in this far. And something about Wen Qing kept pulling her in.
Wen Qing disappeared into the darkness. Jiang Yanli took a quiet breath, cast out her senses, and followed.