Chapter Text
Jiāng Chéng shouldn’t be here. It's been three days since the battle.
There was a feast back at Carp Tower that he should be attending as one of the Sect Leaders who led the siege. Celebrating the defeat of Wèi Wúxiàn, the fearsome Yílíng Lǎozǔ.
Celebrating the defeat of Wèi Wúxiàn, the ex-first disciple of Yúnmèng Jiāng.
Celebrating the defeat of Wèi Wúxiàn, my shīxiōng.
Jiang Cheng shouldn’t be here at all. He didn’t know what drove him to come back to this horrid place. The smell of rotting flesh was unbearable and Jiang Cheng could see various remains poking out through the dirt, the ground lumpy and uneven. He wondered just how many bodies made the Burial Mounds their resting place. The resentful energy in the air was cloyingly thick. It wrapped around him like binding ropes that wanted to drag him further into this hellhole of a place and let it consume him. Drown him. The only thing that protected him against the hypnotising whispers of the dead was the golden core that swirled vigorously in his lower dāntián, keeping him warm and safe against the harsh conditions of this place. How could he live here for so long?
And yet here he was.
Did he really hope that he would find anything left of him? Jiāng Chéng saw him get ripped apart and devoured by his abhorrent creations with his own eyes. There was nothing left of him, this he knew.
Still, he walked on.
It was awfully quiet in the Burial Mounds. Distantly he wondered whether the quietness was due to some invention of Wèi Wúxiàn’s, or if the Burial Mounds itself, sentient as it was, was mourning for the loss of its master. The night was dark, the new moon not affording any light. He passed the mountain where the dark cave where Wèi Wúxiàn lived the last of his days stood. Passed small mounds of dirt disturbed by the shabby farming tools that lay scattered next to them. He walked aimlessly, looking for something, he did not know what. Maybe a piece of a familiar scattered soul. Or the resentful energy of a vengeful ghost out for the blood of those who defeated him. He found nothing.
He was so consumed in his own grief that he almost didn’t hear the soft whimpering coming from the trees ahead of him. Zǐdiàn activated in a flash of violet almost instantly on his finger, in tune with its owner’s instincts and sensing the possibility of danger. There had been no lives spared in the siege, it’s more likely that the sound was coming from a yāo pretending to be a hurt animal in order to lure prey. Jiāng Chéng approached the sound, Zǐdiàn crackling menacingly ready to lash out at any moment. As he was only a couple of steps away, the sound became clearer, and Jiang Cheng wondered why the yāo had not jumped out at him. He was close enough that it did not need to pretend anymore and could just attack.
Confused, Jiāng Chéng dropped his weapon and stepped even closer to the trees. He saw that one of them was hollow and holding what seemed to be a bundle of cloth inside. He nudged it with his foot, and the cloth fell away to reveal a small child.
A child.
In the Burial Mounds of all places. Why? Had he been abandoned by his parents here? That seemed needlessly cruel. He picked up the shivering boy in his arms and observed his condition in the dark. He was flushed, a violent fever wracking his body. The boy shivered and Jiāng Chéng quickly opened his outer robes enough to tuck the child inside, stepping away from the trees in urgency.
This child needed help and though the trip back to Lotus Pier was relatively short he worried that waiting around anymore would cause the death of the child. He was but skin and bones and with his body weakened by the fever, it was questionable whether he would survive to see another day. Holding the child in one arm, he unsheathed Sāndú and mounted it, ascending up into the dark night sky and flying in the direction of Yúnmèng. His previous grief was almost forgotten as it was overtaken by the need to save the boy.
No more lives would be taken by the Burial Mounds. Not if he could help it.
一
His arrival was not announced. He informed the guards on duty that night that no one was to know of his early arrival and of the child carried in his arms. He had the healers waken up and brought to the infirmary, where he handed them the shivering boy and left the healers to work. He stood in front of the infirmary, pacing back and forth anxiously.
A junior disciple, one he recruited during the war, tried to convince him to go to his pavilion to rest. Jiāng Chéng ignored his pleas. He was too wound up to sleep now, not until he knew if the child was going to be alright. So he paced there. Back and forth continuously for hours, until he saw the familiar orange hue of the slowly rising sun over the vast lake of the pier. The door of the infirmary swung open, revealing the Senior Healer, looking tired but relieved. The Healer turned to Jiāng Chéng and his face turned displeased at seeing the Sect Leader in the same position he left him in a couple of hours before.
“Sect Leader Jiāng,” the healer said “What good would it do for me to have two patients instead of one? I believe I asked you to rest in your rooms for the night,
“The child, tell me news of the child,” Jiāng Chéng said, a bit of desperation breaking through his facade.
“The child is stable, he’s malnourished and feverish, but he will live.”
“Oh, thank the heavens, I-”
“Sect Leader Jiāng, if it weren’t for you the child would be dead by now. You are not expected to pace around in front of the ward for hours, Sect Leader Jiang should take better care of his health,” the healer chastised, giving him a stern look.
Jiāng Chéng felt his face redden, “I didn't mean to disturb you, I was simply worried.”
The healer’s face softened “Sect Leader Jiang may enter to see the child now,” he said stepping out of the way.
Jiāng Chéng entered the infirmary carefully so as to not cause any loud noise. He stepped up to the small cot holding the child, an apprentice healer dabbing a wet cloth delicately on his brow. The child was clean and dressed in spare robes now, wrapped in several blankets. He was clutching something tightly in his fist, a red ribbon.
Jiāng Chéng felt his heart drop to his stomach. Stepping closer he finally took in the child’s features. His brows furrowed in discomfort, his nose and lips and his short hair put up into a ponytail. He was instantly taken back to one of his monthly visits to Wèi Wúxiàn. They were arguing about something, and he felt a tug on his robes. A child, this same child, hugging his leg smiling up at him. He had called him gēge that time.
This boy whom he had saved was a Wēn. The same Wēns who destroyed his sect, the same one’s his shīxiōng turned his back on him for. He felt an intense anger flare up. Should he take this child and drop him back into the Burial Mounds and leave him to die? To suffer the same fate that Jiang Cheng’s family did, except now it was by his own hands. The ultimate act of revenge. Anger engulfed him almost entirely. All he saw was red. The red on the Wēn Sect’s sun patterned robes. The red of spilled blood on the pier, bodies left to rot floating in the water. The red on his sword as he continuously slew Wēn soldiers and watched the life drain from their eyes. What should he do now? He had let a Wēn infiltrate his rebuilding sect, he had failed them again.
“He came here with that in his hands,” whispered the apprentice softly, noticing the Sect Leader’s gaze on the ribbon in the boy's hands. “Wouldn’t let go of it even though he was asleep. He kept calling for his ‘gēge’.” She said sadly.
The boy wrinkled his face and sighed tightening his small fist around the ribbon, the red stark next to his deathly pale skin. Seeing this, Jiāng Chéng’s irrational anger slowly dissipated. This Wēn, ‘A-Yuan’ he remembered, was only a child. Shame replaced anger. How could he blame this boy for the deeds of his sect, he did not choose to be a Wēn. He wasn’t a murderer.
He nodded at the apprentice and took his leave, thanking the healers profusely for their work. Jiāng Chéng left the infirmary with commands to call him if the boy ever awoke and walked to his pavilion. He changed into clean robes and washed his face. Today would be a long day, the construction of the sect was barely in its beginning stages and he had many letters to respond to.
He did not know what he was going to do once the boy woke up, but he was alive and safe and recovering and that was enough for now.