Nie Huaisang loves beautiful things, and plucking game birds is an exercise in destroying something beautiful. After which it's an exercise in picking off tiny bits of fluffy down that hide in the crevices and don't want to come out, and that's just annoying. He might hate doing this, but he does know how, so the motions come easily. The Nie were butchers, after all.

Jiang Yanli tended to deal with stress in one of two ways: cooking and taking care of people. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, the Wen indoctrination camp provided many opportunities for both, although not with the people she might have expected. Wei Wuxian spent most of his days being valiant and light-hearted, trying to give them strength and courage, and Jiang Cheng followed his lead the way he always did, brave and serious and thoughtful and – well. It’s not that she didn’t appreciate both of them, because she did, but it was only that her own anxiety was more easily dealt with when she could distance herself from her current situation and focus entirely on someone else. She might have tried to take care of Jin Zixuan, but the Jin sect disciples closed ranks around him, glaring at her as if she were the one who broke off their engagement. Either way, she won’t go where she’s not wanted, and so she backed off and went elsewhere to look for someone that needed her. Luckily for her, Nie Huaisang was very loud and very vocal and very, very needy.