When old sect leader Nie dies, the Wen sect attacks and annexes Qinghe Nie, with the two heirs of the Nie sect taken to be raised as Wen Ruohan's wards - and more besides, in Nie Mingjue's case. Nie Huaisang spends a lot of time thinking about that.

Figuring out that the second daughter of the Jiang clan was, in fact, their son and heir - if you look at it by Qinghe standards - when no one else in Yunmeng had yet figured it out caused Nie Mingjue enough of a headache, and it must have given him a bit of a reputation for sticking his nose into other people's business. That must be the reason that Jiang Cheng would come to him of all people after the fall of the Lotus Pier, hand a little too low down on his stomach for the problem to be food poisoning, to ask for advice - or maybe it was only that he had nobody else to turn to.