Chapter Text
Jiang Yanli had always been looked down on for her cultivation level. No one but her mother would ever say it aloud, but she saw their looks—and it was impossible to miss the way no one feared repercussions for speaking ill of her brothers in front of her.
Those moments were the only ones Jiang Yanli had ever regretted her own level, though. She preferred the kitchen to the training field, the healer’s tent to the sword, and what was wrong with that? They were all important positions.
Until now. Standing with A-Cheng’s arms around her, his face buried in her hair as his tears wet her head, Jiang Yanli stared past their embrace, into the courtyard, and beyond.
A-Xian was gone. Missing. He and A-Cheng had set a meeting place in Yiling, but A-Xian never showed.
He was probably killed by Wens, A-Cheng had cried. Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu had been searching for us, but we separated anyway, and now Wei Wuxian is—Wei Wuxian is—!
Jiang Yanli had never regretted her low cultivation level, until the moment A-Cheng cried to her that their brother was likely dead. She lacked the power to avenge him—but there was nothing she could do about that now. There was something else that had to be done, though, and despite her lack of training, Jiang Yanli had never been one to sit by the wayside and do nothing.
Pulling away from the embrace, Jiang Yanli braced her hands on her brother’s shoulders and looked up at him.
“A-Cheng,” she said firmly. “You stay here and support the campaign. I will look for A-Xian.”
A-Cheng protested at first, but faced with her determined look, he eventually caved and gave her just one condition: She would take with her the handful of Jiang disciples who had escorted her out of Lotus Pier.
The four of them flew away from camp together, Jiang Yanli paired up with one of them on his sword.
It was a long journey to Yiling, and they paused only for minutes at a time to switch who Jiang Yanli flew with whenever her previous flying partner started slowing down. Despite only having three swords for four people, this helped them keep up their speed.
They reached Yiling in less than twelve hours.
A-Cheng had searched Yiling when A-Xian first didn’t show, but he and Jiang Yanli both agreed it made sense to start her search there.
What she didn’t tell him was that she suspected he hadn’t truly checked the outskirts of the town. No cultivator would ever consider the Burial Mounds, and A-Cheng had also been sick with grief and worry.
Jiang Yanli, on the other hand... Jiang Yanli was the daughter of the Violet Spider. She was the protector and mediator of two brothers. She knew how people reacted when hurt, and when they wanted to hurt. She knew of the danger the Burial Mounds contained, but she also knew that cultivators, if they flew high enough, could successfully enter them.
She knew that A-Xian had hurt Wen Chao. She knew that Wen Chao would want to hurt him tenfold in return.
She knew that there was no place rumored to hurt more than the Burial Mounds.
And so when her escorts protested, she fixed them with the piercing glare she learned from her mother, and reminded them that she was Maiden Jiang, and they would do as she commanded and fly her over the Burial Mounds.
For all her determination, though, Jiang Yanli hadn’t planned what to do if she actually found A-Xian. Some part of her had held out hope he wasn’t there, because if he was, he was dead. No one survived the Burial Mounds.
Except for A-Xian, tossing on the ground below them and wreathed in resentful energy.
For a moment, Jiang Yanli just stared down at him. She could barely comprehend what she was seeing. But then—
“Maiden Jiang,” one of her escorts said, voice low and pained. “We should head back. There—there’s nothing we can do for him.”
The idea of leaving A-Xian there to suffer and die struck Jiang Yanli like a strike from Zidian, burning through her until every nerve was on fire and every muscle clenched. She had to do something. She had to—she had to—
She had to remember. Days spent laughing at Lotus Pier, sandwiched between her brothers and eating soup. Listening to them debate cultivation techniques. And, when they returned from Gusu, how A-Xian’s words occasionally strayed toward the idea of harnessing resentful energy. How it might be possible, if only the energy wasn’t burned away by golden cores.
And for the first time in her life, Jiang Yanli took a moment to be thankful that she had always pushed back against cultivating—and then she jumped.
Jiang Yanli hit the ground hard, her leg breaking the fall. She wasn’t sure how long she laid there, wheezing in breaths of air into abused lungs, listening to the shrill cries of her escorts above her, and focusing all of her core into healing her body. She needed to be in the best shape possible—and that included depleting her core. There could be nothing left to harm the resentful energy.
Eventually, breathing came easier, and Jiang Yanli stumble-crawled her way over to A-Xian. He had multiple broken bones and was covered in contusions and blood. There was no telling how long he’d been lying there; Jiang Cheng had spent a week looking for him before even turning to the campaign, and that was assuming A-Xian had been caught shortly before their meeting time, and that the Wens wasted no time in throwing him into the Burial Mounds.
“Oh, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli murmured, reaching to smooth a hand over his hair. “What have they done to you?”
The second her hand touched her brother, the resentful energy attacked.
It writhed through and around her, tearing at her skin, ripping through her nerves—but if it thought it was the most painful thing she had ever experienced, it was wrong.
She had survived the loss of her home and parents. She had held A-Cheng in her arms, and mourned A-Xian even as she hoped he was still alive. She had entertained the thought, however briefly, of there being nothing she could do to save her brother—and she had prevailed. She had done the impossible once. She could do it again.
Gritting her teeth, Jiang Yanli settled A-Xian’s head in her lap, closed her eyes, and focused.
What little golden core she had left would be used to help tame the resentful energy. Eventually, the latter would overwhelm the former. That was fine. That was necessary. Until that happened, though, they could both be used.
Slowly, Jiang Yanli pushed all of her own golden core into A-Xian, using it to chase the resentful energy out of her brother and into the now empty pathways within herself. And then she kept it like that—golden core within A-Xian, resentful energy within herself—and invited the Burial Mounds in.
For the power to take revenge on Wen Chao, it could have her.
For the power to take A-Xian away from here and return him to A-Cheng’s side.
To protect them during the Sunshot Campaign.
To save her brothers, it could have her.