Chapter Text
The last thing Wen Qing felt, as her life faded, was the tip of a blade and an immense rage that swallowed her whole.
Even after the pain and her heartbeats had long stopped, it was all sorrow and rage. Rage and sorrow. Then, only rage fueled her; it was everything in the world. She couldn't remember her name, her brother, her academic knowledge, the warmth of her family, or anything else. She was not herself anymore, and she did not care: everything and everyone that mattered was gone anyway. She couldn't understand anything happening around her, or to her corpse. She only retaliated in a primal state. Only the vortex of resentment and violence remained.
But eventually, no more. Something or someone bound her, in body and soul. In stillness, she barely existed. No thoughts, no actions, no feelings. Void.
For years, forgotten and sealed and chained. Void. She woke up to nobody's command, as she had no master.
One day the binding spells snap. Resentment flooded back. Around her, a blur of people-shaped figures who had to fight against the consuming rage.
The metallic sound of chains hitting stone and flesh.
Screams.
Music. Soothing music.
A familiar voice that reached her ears.
She's held with strong arms and song, as something in her hesitated.
Four piercing nails fell to the ground with loud clinks.
And again, for a while... void. But not for long.
She woke up. Not just her body, like before. She was truly herself, with the ashes of her own thoughts and emotions as though she picked them up as they were before her death. Wen Qing was back. Her eyes, now with dark pupils instead of endless white, would have blinked to the soft sunshine of twilight if they could.
"Sister!"
She moved her head to see the origin of the voice. Was it a hallucination? Wen Ning was kneeling next to her, his eyes concerned.
"A-Ning...?" she said in a voice too raspy and deep to be hers.
But that was not possible. She had been cruelly forced to see him being destroyed from a tower nearby, before they sent her to a dungeon. She remembered the flames, the terrible smell of burning rotten flesh, and then them scattering the ashes as if to prevent he could ever return or even reincarnate.
Before she could question him, her brother threw his arms around her. She felt neither coldness or warmth to the touch, yet the pressure of the weight made her doubt it was a dream. She should have suspected it. It had been too far away to see his face clearly. And yes, he was too valuable not to be used by the Jin Sect. That would be melting a sharp steel knife.
Speaking of death... She noticed she had not breathed or blinked or felt her own heartbeat yet. Her brain knew that she couldn't, and instead of shock or fear she felt a strong irritation.
So that had happened, too. She remembered an imp-looking young man coming to her cell all of a sudden. They talked while he finished a tanghulu, and while it was a disgusting experience none of his insults was about her being a Wen dog, which was almost refreshing. He riled her up with technical questions about her brother, and she immediately could tell he was a demonic cultivator under Jin Guangshan's ranks. Unladylike, Wen Qing spat on his cheek.
That angered him, and he was quite a spiteful man. He informed her of unpleasant things that her jail wardens had not told her, the worst of her fears confirmed. In despair and fury, she tried to punch him. But he was faster and unsheathed his sword, and she lost conscious on the floor in a pool of her own blood. His vicious eyes and the sharp canines on his gloating smirk were the last thing she saw alive.
Maybe her demise was something he had already planned in order to experiment.
Still in Wen Ning's embrace, she glanced at her own hands. The skin was ashen and black veins ran though their back towards the forearm. The diagnose was evident: she had been turned into a fierce corpse as well.
Wonderful, she thought while she petted Wen Ning's long hair.
"Are you okay, sis?" Wen Ning asked when he broke the hug. "Uh, obviously not," he quickly added. "I mean..."
"It's me. At least right now."
"Oh. Good, then." He made a pause. He did that a lot while talking. "How are you feeling?"
"Furious, to be honest."
"A-ah... Yes, that's understandable."
"Not at you, A-Ning!" she whispered. "I'm... glad you're not dead." Was she, though? Perhaps both should have been resting. She didn't know the sorts of things they had done to them, or had made them do. Regardless, the relief to have her little brother —the person she had sacrificed everything for several times— with her was undeniable.
"I'm happy you're here, too. But should I be happy, sis?"
She forced a smirk, discovering the difficulty to fight rigor mortis in facial muscles. It seemed Wen Ning was feeling the same uncertainty and guilt.
"Well, we'll decide later. First we have to get away from..."
From where?
She looked around for the first time to find herself in a shabby room. No, perhaps it was a shack. There was rough handmade furniture, miscellaneous items, and signs of living to an extent, but it didn't feel that lively. She had no sense of smell but could feel her brother's energy deep into the wood and ground. He probably built it and lived there, so to speak.
"We're in... It's my house. We're not in Lanling territory anymore. I carried you while your soul recovered."
"How far are we?"
"Gusu. A mile from Cloud Recesses, more or less. I, uh, I know what you're thinking, but only some junior disciples and Young Master Lan know about this place. We can trust them, they good people and won't tell Sect Leader Lan and Mister Lan Qiren."
"Still too reckless, A-Ning!" she sighed. So they were casually supervised by GusuLan members. That was surprising but she was almost fine by it. There were worse sects to be bothering with them. Lan Wangji had been nothing but honorable, if only because he had been concerned about Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian... The face of a young man crying and then sleeping came to mind. And then, another man dripping poison with his words:
"To think your surrender wasn't able to save him or your clan! I hear your mountain was so full of resentful corpses when the siege was over that they had to dump them in a pool of blood. It was all in vain, you dumb woman! I despise weak people like you. That's what you get for being noble! Ahahahaha!"
Assuming, of course, that the tanghulu asshole had told the truth. Even though she had been a pacifist in her previous life, she hoped either herself in a berserk state, A-Ning, or somebody else had murdered him. Even if only to prevent more cases like her, she convinced herself, but honestly she just wanted him dead. Her blood would boil if only she had any drop left.
"Sister? Is something the matter? You look angry. You can tell me, I understand."
She was sure he did, that he was the only one who would get it. Still, Wen Qing shook her head.
"You're right, we need to tell each other's stories. I'm sure you have as many questions as I have."
"Yeah. I... saw you dying. They burned you alive. A lot of people from various clans were witnesses."
"That wasn't me, though. What's more, I saw you burning as well. Let me ask you something."
"Is it if I saw you up close?" he interrupted. "No, after they took us to different buildings, I was taken to the other side of the plaza. I couldn't see your face clearly, but I could've sworn..."
"I see you reached the same conclusion," she nodded. "They set up two different shows so we both thought we had died. A-Ning... did you lose control or do something crazy, when you saw me dying?"
"..."
His regretful face was all she needed to know. Oh, A-Ning. This had been planned carefully so the other sects were affected by Wen Ning, and the rest of their little clan and Wei Wuxian could be slaughtered as a collaboration. How could they have been so blind? They fell right into the Jin Sect's hands!
She swallowed her rage. She needed to keep it together, not letting the fierce corpse win.
"Let's continue. Let me tell you the rest of my story. At first it wasn't so bad. I had a couple of dull years with just minor abuse from wardens. Jin's bastard son would show up and ask me for medical secrets from our branch, every now and then. I complied and told him a few, in order to keep the others safe. Not my thesis, of course, just recipes and optimized healing spells. But..."
She bit her lower lip. It felt chapped under her teeth. "Say, A-Ning, that was a lie too, wasn't it? They killed the rest as soon as they could, didn't they? I heard of a siege in Burial Mounds..."
Wen Ning stuttered a yes. He looked like he would cry if he could shed tears.
Unable to calm down, Wen Qing grabbed a teacup from the nearest table —why does he even own one, when he can't drink anything?— and threw it against the wall with a guttural roar that didn't sound human. The object went through and left a big wall as if the house was made of paper.
"It's alright," Wen Ning winced. "Vent all you want. I can rebuild the walls again later."
"...You haven't changed, boy," she said as her mood deflated after his words. She cupped and caresses his face, unable to feel much. It was good that he was with her. He kept her grounded with his mild attitude. "I... have to get used to this strength now."
"So... what happened later, sis?" He put his hand over hers.
"I'll have to tell you how I died. Are you okay with that?"
"I thought I saw you burning alive," he replied. "You're long dead anyway."
He had a point. She told the rest of the story, or at least the parts she could remember. She wasn't conscious enough during the vortex of rage to retain anything. Wen Ning filled the blanks by telling her what they found on the laboratory where she had been tied with chain and talisman alike.
"I also had those nails in my head," he concluded, "and so did this other man who was like you. That guy who killed you sounds like Xue Yang."
"Was he lacking a finger, wearing his hair in a ponytail? Did he have pointy fangs? Did he look like a little shit?"
"It was definitely Xue Yang."
"Please tell me he's dead or I'm going personally to his house to correct that injustice."
Wen Ning's jaw opened wide, but he still answered. "A-ah, long story but someone else took care of that."
"Did he die painfully?"
"He lost an arm and had been pierced by Young Master Lan in the vitals, so I guess?"
Once again, Lan Wangji.
"Good! At least one of those cretins got what he deserved. Now, A-Ning... How long have I been...? You know."
"Uh. How long had you been in prison, sis?"
Oh. So it had been years if Wen Ning was unable to know.
"I'm not sure. I figured they'd kill me eventually so I never kept track of time. Maybe two years, or three? Okay, let's try again. How long has it been since we turned ourselves in?"
Wen Ning's eyes looked at his own knees. It took him a while to answer.
"It's been fourteen years."
"Whoa. That much?" She looked at her gray hands. The medic part of her brain was impressed their flesh was so well conserved. Her brother didn't look like a day had passed by, either.
Fourteen years. So many things can happen in a decade and a half. The Sunshot Campaign alone lasted just enough for those teen boys to become men.
"How about LanlingJin? What's their status now, if you're so certain they won't find us here?"
"Ah, well... Jin Guangshan was killed by Jin Guangyao." She was not surprised by the betrayal. "Jin Guangyao became the next Chief Cultivator until about a year ago or so. Then he died, too. Now Young Master Jin Ling, Young Master Jin Zixuan's son, is sort of their Sect Leader but Sect Leader Jiang is helping him in a bunch of things since he's so young."
She made a quick subtraction in her mind. That was ridiculously young even for post-Sun Campaign cultivator standards. At that age, A-Ning would still weep when he was scolded. A baby in charge of a bunch of adult babies.
"Ugh, so Jiang Cheng is Chief Cultivator now?"
"No, only leading two main sects." That's bad enough, she thought. "I'm not up to date with politics so I dunno who they'll choose, if at all."
"So who murdered Lianfang-Zun?"
Wen Ning grimaced. "That's a complicated question. A team effort? If you ask me, I'd say Sect Leader Nie made the most effort." He tilted his head. "Both of them."
"What do you mean, both?"
"Nie Huaisang was named Sect Leader after Nie Mingjue died, and he was the one who we think could've planned the whole thing."
"But if Chifeng-Zun died, how could he help?"
"Fierce corpse. He finished the job after Jin Guangyao got an arm cursed by a grave, got the other arm cut by Young Master Lan, and got accidentally stabbed by Sect Master Lan."
Overwhelming phrase aside, it did seem the Lans had been using their swords to stab and cut limbs a lot lately.
"What? A-Ning, that's wild! And that big guy is like us, too? What if he someone uses him or he goes after us or something?"
"Ah, I'm definitely weaker than him so it'd be a problem if he becomes our enemy. But that's okay, his body was sealed with Sect Master Jin in a coffin. That resentment should keep him busy."
"..."
It was good she couldn't feel pain anymore, because the story would have given her a migraine otherwise. Instead, she glanced at the ceiling as she tried to process that mess of a tale.
"Heavens, little brother. You're still terrible at storytelling. You go straight to the facts and spare no narrative."
"S-Sorry, sis... I did say it was complicated. Oh well, Young Master Wei can tell you the entire story better when he comes visiting."
"That would be great," she said.
Almost a minute passed until she processed that sentence.
What?
WHAT?
Wen Qing grabbed Wen Ning by his shoulders and bashed him against the already battered wall. She left a man-shaped dent.
"A-Ning, sweetheart?"
"Y-y-yes, sister?"
"Did you say Young Master Wei?"
"I did."
She felt a ray of hope breaking into the vortex of despair and rage repressed in her heart.
"So he didn't die?"
"...He did die." The ray was swallowed by darkness. "But he came back about a year ago!"
WHAT?!
"Is he a fierce corpse, too?! Or is he possessing someone?!"
"No, it's a long story, but someone gave him his own body willingly through a demonic cultivation ritual or something like that? So it's his soul in a new body but it's not really possession if it belongs to him now."
Wen Qing didn't breathe anymore but she still blew air upwards to tousle her hair bangs. She needed to huff.
"Typical of Wei Wuxian to come back in the most convoluted way," she complained but her eyes and heart were smiling. He didn't die! Well, he did, but he was alive! He didn't have to lose his life permanently because of the Wen siblings' mistakes! "How is he doing, by the way?"
"Ah, he was there when we got you out of that place. He helped calm you down and removed the nails from your skull. He was as surprised as I was when the sealed corpse in that abandoned Jin laboratory happened to be you! He cried a little, actually."
"Oh, did he?" She nodded to herself. She was absolutely going to use that last fact to tease him. "So where is our dumb hero now?"
"Cloud Recesses. He lives there now. He should come by to visit tomorrow."
Huh. No wonder Wen Ning had been stubbornly living nearby.
"And do Zewu-Jun and Master Lan know he's there?"
"Sure! It's already nighttime. He... They can probably hear him making noises right now."
Wen Ning didn't look like he wanted to elaborate. It seems there was more nuance to that, even though it was true that Wei Wuxian was one noisy animal in general.
Still, interesting that the Lan Sect was also supervising the Yiling Patriarch. Lan Wangji's doing, most certainly. Was her little brother figure comfortable there, she wondered? Also, why was it always Hanguang-Jun popping in, no matter the subject?
"Ah, sister..."
"Yes?"
"I almost forgot. A-Yuan survived the siege and lives in the Cloud Recesses as well, as a Lan Sect disciple."
WHAT?!?!
She pushed Wen Ning once again against the wall, making the dent deeper. Then she dropped her head over her brother's shoulder.
"Wen Qionglin, you should have started there!! You're so bad at explaining!!"
Wen Ning just hugged her and rocked her. If she could sob, she would. Little A-Yuan! Alive and allowed to grow! Not hunted!
They hadn't gotten their whole family killed. Just one surviving the Mounds was enough! The most innocent of them! Even if the Lan part was a bit uncomfortable to her, she understood that it was still a million times better than death!
She changed her mind for the time being. Being kept in this world didn't seem so bad anymore, if she will get to see A-Ning, A-Yuan, and Wei Wuxian once more among the living.
"I'm sure he'll be able to tell his story better than me as well, when he visits you."
"Those two better visit me, yes!" she scoffed with her heart flooded by something different than rage.
Eventually Wen Ning stopped his chattering, his voice even hoarser than it should be. Even if fierce corpses don't get physically tired, the siblings had emotions like everyone else living, and thus not even his enthusiasm could prevent him to be depleted of energy for social interaction. He had been like that always, long ago when he was an innocent shy child.
Fierce corpses have to stay awake as they don't need rest. Wen Qing realized that it was the first of endless nights that awaited her, and that was a rather unpleasant prospect in her opinion. She just sat in the darkness in silence with her back against the wall. Wen Ning laid down in a passive repose that mimicked sleep, his head on his sister's lap. She appreciated the weight and caressed the long inky hair. So messy! Was it so hard to get a cheap comb? She needed to tie her hair up so badly.
Only the sounds of owls and crickets could be heard. The lack of breathing and heartbeats was most disconcerting. She touched her own skin in examination —dry and cold and protruded with veins— and checked her non-existent pulse and spiritual energy. They really were two dead bodies, medically speaking. Wen Ning's little hut had become a Coffin Home.
Her fatal wound was gone. Someone had fixed it, or perhaps the flesh closed off on its own.
If she concentrated, she could only feel the presence of the one on her lap. Ah, so that's resentful energy. She wondered aloud if A-Ning felt her as well, and he nodded. Well, at least she'd always know where her brother was!
In silence, she digested all the information she had been given. Some of it she didn't believe, or at least she wouldn't until somebody else gave her a logical, extended version of the tale. The part about Wei Wuxian and A-Yuan being alive, she did hope and believe; Wen Ning could never joke about them. But so many things had happened in over a decade, and she expected atrocities and marvels alike to learn about.
She tried not to wonder if her non-killing oath had been broken during those blank, foggy years. How violent had those experiments been? Had she become a knife as well? Or had she been discarded while proven untamed? She couldn't remember, and the ignorance could not grant her bliss. If anything, the satisfaction she felt about Xue Yang's death was so vile she would taste bile if her stomach could produce any.
She shook her head and focused on the moonlight that shone on Wen Ning's mane instead. What's the use of lamenting for unknown sins and non-beating hearts? She was more interested in her loved ones' past stories than her own, and her dead heart could pump for the future stories to be and the dark road with lanterns ahead of them.