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Dying had always seemed like a faraway thought to Wei Wuxian. After all, he had become “The Yiling Patriarch”, the harbinger of bad news, a necromancer feared by the living, his name so well-known that it spread throughout the lands in hushed tones as if saying it any louder than that would put on a curse on their beloveds in the afterlife to be used as fodder for his next attacks on those still standing above the ground, but before all that, he had simply been Wei Wuxian, a mischievous but calculative boy who didn’t fear death, but rather, embraced it with open arms because if dying meant saving the life of a beautiful girl he once called “MianMian” from those calling her worthless and wishing her harm all for the sake of satisfying their egos or the life of his brother, Jiang Cheng, by giving up his Golden Core to him because it would mean more to Jiang Cheng than it ever would to him, then so be it.
It hadn’t occurred to him how mortal the act of dying was since becoming The Yiling Patriarch, for when you had the power of death on your side, you paid little mind to your own body and the physical implications using demonic influences would do to it in the long run; your mind skews, and your ability to reason with others who once considered you sane (albeit, different) dwindles, flickering like a candle flame in the wind.
He didn’t cry when he had learned from Jiang Fengmian that his parents had died unexpectedly in a night-hunt, nor did he cry when he was being chased away by dogs as he scavenged for scraps of food from wherever he could find them while wandering on the streets alone as a young orphan to settle the rumbling in his stomach, and yet now, he felt inexplicably sad, as if he were leaving something, someone important behind.
“...”
No, he couldn’t be. There wasn’t anyone left in this world who cared about him. His parents, Uncle Jiang, shijie, Wen Ning, and Wen Qing, they were all long gone by now, only alive in his hazy memories. No, there wasn’t a soul left that he once cared about in this world to shed a tear for him at his funeral, to burn paper money for his spirit, so that he could be assuaged of a happy and prosperous life waiting for him beyond the darkness in eternal paradise. He had severed the bond he had once shared with Jiang Cheng once and for all after inadvertently causing the death of his beloved sister, Jiang Yanli, his only blood relative left in this godforsaken world besides Jin Ling, who was only just a babe still suckling on his mother’s breasts when it happened, and as for A-Yuan, well, he was probably already dead like the rest of the people that he held dear to him by now; he bore little hope for that child surviving a brutal, senseless massacre, let alone remembering his face and wanting to see him once again after all of this fighting was over. That leaves… Lan Zhan…
Ah, how he would’ve liked to see Lan Zhan one last time, to gaze upon that fair, frost covered face once more and to stare into those molten gold eyes and wonder just what it was that Lan Zhan was thinking about at that instant. Yes, he would have liked to have seen something that beautiful, that close to perfection you can get on land without having to step foot into the shimmering gates of the heavens in the end, but he supposes, that wouldn’t happen. Corpses lay at his feet left and right. The beautiful, elegant, otherworldly Lan Zhan wouldn’t appear here in his pristine, white, celestial robes on this slovenly battlefield solely to retrieve him, to bury his motionless body and erect a grave marker for him in his honor. Miracles like those aren’t granted to people like him who walked the demonic path as if it were a righteous one. That was just wishful thinking on his part, the introspections of a dying man in his last moments on earth.
He never imagined he would go this way; in his youth, he always spouted nonsense about how he would die one day doing something noble like fighting a worthy beast on a spontaneous night-hunt with Jiang Cheng by his side because he couldn’t imagine going with anybody else or protecting a woman caught in the midst of a dangerous situation who’d then thank him with a kiss to his cheek as he took his last breath in her arms. He never imagined that he would be struck down like this, with suddenly, the weight of his actions as the number one man most hated by his former peers and the expectations those in higher positions than him had for him when he was still a promising, young cultivator laying heavy on his chest as if they were a paperweight preventing him from drifting away in the breeze and finally sinking into a pond, never to be seen the same way again.
But Wei Wuxian didn’t fear death. Even when he was thrown down into the deepest, darkest depths of Burial Mounds, he didn’t fear death; the only thing on his mind at that moment was survival and how he was one day going to return to what remained of the once thriving Yunmeng Jiang Sect to fulfill the promise he made to Jiang Cheng after the events of the Xuanwu Cave transpired and taste the warmth of a bowl (or two, or three) of his shijie’s Lotus Root and Pork Rib Soup to replenish his strength before seeking revenge on the Wens for burning everything that was precious to him and the people he loved the most to ashes.
Still, if there is an afterlife, oh, how nice would it be if he were to experience no more pain, no more suffering, or instead, if he were to be reborn, if he were to have someone catch him when he falls, that would be enough, retribution be damned. He’d accept all kinds of pain and suffering if he just had someone to share that with him, to make it hurt a little less when the world turned against him and used him as their scapegoat, their sacrificial lamb because it was easier to blame him than admitting to the deeply seeded corruption within the cultivation community and the pride the sects have in tradition and values as well as the scorn they harbor for those who don’t wish to conform to their rules. That would be nice, he hummed to himself, like the reminder of spring with the first blooms of the magnolia trees after the lands have been battered and bruised by a cold, harsh winter. That would be nice indeed, he feels his breathing becoming shallower and shallower as he humors his fading consciousness with imagining this wholesome scenario, to be able to have somewhere to call home and drink a jar or two of Emperor’s Smile in the evening after all the lanterns are blown out in the cities leaving only the moon and the stars to illuminate the indigo, night sky that seemingly belonged to them and only them who sit beneath it huddled together, enjoying each other’s company like family, like friends, like lovers do after a long day at work.
How nice would that be, his eyes finally shut, a somber promise of perhaps, a better tomorrow awaits him in the future.