Chapter Text
Realizing that his energy reacted promptly to the atmosphere, resentment that swirled relentlessly inside of him and threatened to spill out in thick waves, Wei Wuxian excused himself out of public life— he literally started avoiding taking long strides across the city or even simply stick one feet out of his room unless forced by circumstances, and forced a sort of self-seclusion over himself. He was working on something, he said, when in reality he spent most of the time gritting his teeth and fisting his hands to subdue the ever-growing nasty energy that whispered incessantly inside of his head, turning his sleep into restless nights, or the at times sharp blows of pain that ran deep across his spine.
Throughout this time, many demanded about Wei Wuxian, whispering obnoxious things in his regard and sharing rumors, but each of them had at least once genuinely wondered what had happened to the young, promising cultivator of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan.
The days in Qinghe passed slowly, but each of them Wei Wuxian spent in the same manner, tucked inside his room— thinking, organizing, planning when those voices weren’t threatening to split his head open, barely resting.
Time ticked by but he just wouldn’t stop to get any food, sleep or anything in between, only noticing such trivial things when Jiang Cheng entered his room, never without a trail of warm food in his hands and a good lecture about skipping meals and sleeping disorders. Sometimes he bore news of his father, less about his mother, and filled him in on the general progress of the Sunshot Campaign— sometimes he just looked at him, and his face would become sour.
When the younger demanded why he looked like that, Wei Wuxian would end up snapping at him, angry flames swirling inside his body and all around him - after all, he had forced this sort of self-seclusion into himself precisely because of the thousands of voice screeching and screaming inside his head, which had only gotten louder.
Why shut yourself inside this room when you can have the room with just one note of your flute?
Why surrender yourself to them when you can have enough power to conquer the world?
The only reason Wei Wuxian did not chase Jiang Cheng off was because his presence was the only thing that would sometimes manage to subdue his desperation and the pain in his head, relent the pressure growing on his skull and thus allow him some relief and sleep. It wasn’t really sleeping, but it still helped him shut his brain for a bit and rest.
It was the best he had gotten for ages.
Apart from when he was in that other room, being taken care of… Lan Wangji.
But the boy was kept under watch by his uncle, prohobited from having any kind of contact with Wei Wuxian, so the latter could only long for that spell-like thing which cast a rare, blissful quietness in his head, something that only the Second Young Master of Gusu Lan seemed to be in possess of.
Wei Wuxian felt like he was sinking further in the hole he was always hovering above of, taking one step closer to the edge of the cliff of exhasparation.
The days proceeded like this, slow and eventless, hours ticking by like the cold breeze of winter and the heavy rain of autumn, heavy and frigid, but never long-lasting.
But then, the first rays of light filtered in across the dense clouds in the sky, warming up the coldest souls.
The first change came when, the morning of long, strenuous days later, the city was awakened by loud, barging voices: the younger disciples of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan came at the head family’s room screaming at the top of their lungs, but the alarming illusion of a battle was soon shot down by the joyful smiles plastered on each face.
“Call the Jiang family! Hurry! Young Mistress Jiang is here!” they screamed, and at that very moment, some horses training one cab stopped at the entrance of Qinghe. “Young Mistress Jiang is here!”
Without delay, Yanli stepped out and gazed with wondering, curious eyes at the field before her, crowded with so many busied people than ran back and forth. Still, some stopped by to acknowledge her and Jin Zixuan, who was the one to lead her here personally after keeping her company in Lanling for the past months under her parents’ request.
As she walked across the open field, greeting people she barely had any resemblance with - all of them scarred by the fatigue of war -, she continuously shifted her eyes from one direction to another, eager to find her family whom she had been separated from for too long.
It was shortly after that she finally noticed the familiar silhouettes clad in purple striding across the streets with a rushed pace, and called out for them with unhidden urgency.
“Father! Mother! A’Cheng!”
“A’Li!” her parents smiled brightly at her as they both cradled their daughter in a tight hug, while Jiang Cheng slipped behind her, effectively squeezing her in a family hug: she had never experienced one, Yanli thought bitterly but happily. What had happened in these past months for her parents to be this close again?
“A’Li, let me take a look at you.” Yu Ziyuan said, gentle as she grabbed her shoulders and broke the hug to check on her from up close. “How have you been? Did the Jin Clan treat you well?”
Yanli nodded with a smile. “They did, Madam Jin was very kind.”
Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian nodded, relieved to hear such news, and offered their thanks to Jin Zixuan, who was watching the scene unfold a few metres away with a complex expression on his face — though there surely was a tender fondness in his eyes.
“We will be sure to thank her properly when all this is over.”
Yanli sniffed but nodded at her father’s words. Letting go of them, she turned to her brother, who was watching over her with such a tender, gleeful look that she could not prevent the tears that came later, making his face go even softer.
“A’Cheng,” she smiled brokenly, “I’m so happy to see you have recovered.” she said, and her small, trembling hand cradled his cheek fondly. Jiang Cheng leaned gladly against the caress, cupping her hand on his own.
Last time they saw each other, about some months back, Jiang Cheng had told her about how Lotus Pier was assaulted, burned to ashes and stripped of its own name and pride by the Wen Clan, and how the only reason they were alive was the sacrifice of their missing brother, who had given his life - bitter, so bitter - in exchange of their safety. He told her how he had also provided their disciples a way out of Lotus Pier after figuring out that an immediate victory was impossible.
On the way to recovery, her growing concern toward her brother had led her to consult her parents: given his pride, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t ever speak such truth to anyone, even under torture, but ever since Lotus Pier, he had been silently mouring Wei Wuxian, refusing to voice his loss out loud as if to not lose hope by speaking cursed words, but still craving his brother back at his side more than anything. Such a thought had tormented him to his breaking point, where his father and mother had to confront him for his and their own sake.
Yanli could not blame him of course, because the moment she had heard her father hint - not state, she could read between the lines - that Wei Wuxian was most likely dead, she had lost counsciousness and fainted right in his arms, and then woke up with a high fever that consumed her body for a week. Long after that, put in the Jin Clan’s care, Yanli struggled to eat, sleep and smile, and could not heal well throughout the whole time she had known of her dearest people joining the war.
And now, to see her brother standing strong and brave once more, steady on his own two feet, his face clean and not stained with desperation and nightmares, she felt a strong, beaming pride swell in her chest.
She smiled. “You have grown up.”
Jiang Cheng nodded back.
“I’ve missed you so much, A’Jie.” he replied, voice watery with unshed tears but still genuine, and Yanli’s smile brightened, ever so kind but also broken— forasmuch her family had finally reunited, so strongly tied together after so many hardships and storms they had found a way through, it was yet not whole.
It might never be.
“I missed you too.” she admitted, and halfway through the conflicted feelings in her heart of both warmth and hollowness, she let the tears stream down and mark her pale cheeks, hiding several unspoken meanings. “I— I am so relieved to see you are okay.”
She was speaking from her heart, but her face twisted, and so did Jiang Cheng’s— a mute understanding paased between them, a mutual comprehension of the pain each of them had carved in their heart, a thought that was imprinted in the walls of their mind…
Except that Jiang Cheng’s eyes still shone and his heart was still warm, because he knew.
In fact, an excited smile lit away the pain in his face. “A’Jie, Wei Wuxian is—”
“Shijie…”
A gasp.
Jiang Yanli’s back and arms tensed at the distant call, her eyes widening as the familiary of the voice washed over her like the warm breeze of spring, squeezing her heart in a clutch. Her hands slipped away from her younger brother’s face as she turned around slowly, hesitant, as though she believed the sound to be nothing more than a vile illusion of her mind evoked by her aching, craving heart.
But then, the hesitation dissipated at once, because she saw Wei Wuxian.
It was him without a doubt in the world, but it would be an understatement to say that he had changed these past six months they spent apart: the usually messy appearance of his long and wild ponytail had switched to a utterly disheveled look, loose strands of brownish hair that cascaded all around him, his long bangs kept back in a bun tied by his red ribbon.
Where ahead of the loss of Lotus Pier the tips of his eyes and lips typically retained the hint of a smile, baring a youngish and cheerful personality, now he looked like the broken shell of himself. No one could pass up how he had become detached and colder after turning to unhortodox ways. Though the truth was not so distant, they still didn’t know the true extent of such reality.
Leaving aside the general opinion, Jiang Yanli had known his brother the best, engraving in her mind the childish, gleeful, flirtatious and sunny boy who made her and her sibling’s youth in Lotus Pier much happier, but who was just as much responsable, proud, strong and loyal to his kind. She knew who and how he truly was, knew where to look when the commoners who knew of his untamed character only stopped to the surface: she knew that there was sorrow behind his unimpressed looks, knew there was pain in his smiles, knew that there was a secret that laid in the depth of his dulled eyes, but that was too big for her.
And yet, all she could see right then, casting aside any unnecessary adjective, was that he was there, alive.
“A’Xian—” her voice broke as tears slid down her cheeks more freely now, stupor mindled with shock and disbelief. Amidst the chaos of feelings swirling inside her heart, anxiety and silent fears still overwhelmed reason, thus why she locked eyes with Jiang Cheng. But he nodded once, and that was all she needed.
Without thinking twice, she sprinted toward Wei Wuxian and crosseed the distance between them with few, quick steps, not wavering once until he was standing less than a few inches away, so close that she could feel his warmth and recognize every little detail.
“A’Xian…” she called, but it came out nasal and low, weak and pleading, her voice and face twisted by the tangled lump of raw feelings that welled in her throat and severed her breath, closing her lungs. “My A’Xian—”
“Shijie...”
Yanli couldn’t find the strenght to smile.
Her face, which had held out until then, quieverd beneath the overwhelming weight of pent-up emotions, the desperation and sorrow she had collected within her frail body until that very moment, a pile of negativity to which the slimmest, stubborn hope still clung.
A hope that was now blooming.
Her hands were shaking when she cradled his arms and patted his skin, indulging herself despite the public setting. She needed to convince her brain that Wei Wuxian was really standing there, alive, with that large, honest smile set on his face despite the streaming tears, and only direct contact could act as evidence and testify that this was not a mere illusion, but the one, solid truth she needed.
At some point, she was holding his (cold, skeletric) hands between her own, pulling them up between their bodies, and Wei Wuxian let her do anything, his body listening compliant while he watched her tenderly, his tear-strained face pale under the light.
“My XianXian. Y-You... You are here...” alive, she wanted to say, but ironically, that cursed word died in her throat.
Tears streamed down without hint of stopping, glint and glisten, trickling and staining her pale cheeks with a deep pink, seemingly unstoppable. They blurred her vision, soaked her hair and clothes, got blinked, and then wiped by a gentle hand.
“Shijie, don’t cry.” Wei Wuxian spoke, finally, and Yanli thought that she had to have been blessed, for Heaven must have fulfilled her wish to hear his voice again and have him so close that her ears could capture each word he uttered.
“It breaks my heart to see you cry like this.” he continued, voice quivering, and Yanli should have been upset because her heart had really broken when she learnt that he had sacrificed his life to honor her family.
Indeed, after the joy came the grief, hitting her like tons of bricks, solid and heavy.
“Why would you do that?” Her voice was soaked wet, and she looked almost mad, but was too kind to raise her tone.
Her trembling eyes shifted back and forth between Wei Wuxian’s in search of answers: unfortunately, she had always been good at reading him, and he had always been too weak when it came to her.
When she saw right through the lump of insecurities that were eating him alive and the silent pain he had been enduring since waking up in Lotus Pier, he would have expected a severe scolding. Instead, she averted her eyes for a second and squeezed his hands. “A’Xian, you— you are part of my family. How can you deem your life any less important!?”
Wei Wuxian’s smile twisted.
“Shijie, it was my job to protect them, as a disciple of the Jiang Clan. Their safety comes before anyone else’s. And I…” he hesitated, wavering. “… I could not let someone take them away from you and Jiang Cheng.”
His voice broke at the admission, because Wei Wuxian had seen with his own eyes what losing her parents had turned them - Jiang Cheng and Yanli - into. And then, after clinging to the lasting warmth of one another, he had betrayed them.
Yanli breathed in shakily, holding back. “And you think losing you wouldn’t have made me sad!?”
More tears spilled from Wei Wuxian’s eyes, rolling down his face and cheeks; the sad smile he had on his lips crumbled, the facade of calmness and steadiness he had imposed on himself shattering to nothing as he stared into his Shijie’s eyes, breaking down the same way she had.
He had long come to terms with being dispensable, accepting that there were lives in this world that preceded his by importance… but Yanli loved him far too much to make him ever doubt being cherished. She had been the only one with the ability to reason with Wei Wuxian in the depths of his grief-stricken madness.
“You have to protect yourself too.” Yanli insisted, and her cries did soften, enough for her to gain composure over her face. “These past months… Neither me or A’Cheng could accept that you—” she shook her head hastily, breath itching, “We could never—”
Yanli hiccuped, and the sight pained Wei Wuxian.
“Breath, Shijie. I— I’ll be careful from now on.” he claimed, but held back from reciting any hasty promise due to past experiences. “Just please, stop crying for me, okay?”
Gently as to not scare her, he freed his hand to wipe away her tears, and the touch soothed Yanli who breathed in and out a few times against his skin, making his chest constrict in a fit of guilt.
“You are good for nothing.” came then Jiang Cheng’s voice as he stepped close, his face as pale and wet as theirs. “You made Shijie upset again.” despite the scolding tone, never had the smile on his face been any brighter and gentle.
For Lotus Pier was lost, but his family was whole.
The sound of Yanli’s soft laughter filled Wei Wuxian’s heart with happiness; Jiang Cheng hovered a few feet away, visibly craving his siblings’ affection and warmth but hesitating due to his stupid pride and embarassment to openly join the embrace.
Wei Wuxian sniffed, smiling: they were there, all of them, united as they have ever been.
‘You, me, and A-Cheng, the three of us must be together forever and never be parted.’
Out of a sudden, he reached out for Jiang Cheng and pulled him flush, proceeding then to wrap both siblings in another desperate embrace.
Despite his temper and attitude, the newly acclaimed Clan Leader Jiang melted in the hug, and soon he felt his hands crawl up his spine and join Yanli’s. They stayed like that for endless seconds, several pair of eyes fixed on them but being of little bother for the three siblings, and when they parted, Wei Wuxian didn’t mention the stain in his shoulder where Jiang Cheng had rested his chin.
****
The three of them ended up spending the whole afternoon chatting, eyes shedding tears and lips wobbling at every caress, every smile. Yanli’s hands held his with warmth, and such pure and comforting touch could be compared, to him, to no other feeling in the world, for it seemed to quell even those malicious voices inside his head.
It lasted long, but it was destined to end sometime soon, for Yanli quickly noticed ths dishelved state of her brother, and urged him to get a good rest.
He said nothing for he did not wish to alert her, but he dreaded the moment he would be all alone again, surrounded by a room which lurked of shadows and ill-intentioned entitities that crawled out of his bed and clung to his body, had him chocking on air.
In fact, sleep did not come easily that night either despite the tiredness he had accumulated due to spending most of the day crying along his Shijie after her return, reacting sympatheticly to her own sadness and grief.
The exhaustion echoed within the abyssal emptiness of his chest, dragging him towards the ever-encroaching darkness that led not to sleep, nor to unconsciousness.
When Wei Wuxian left his siblings’ room, the sun had already disappeared, the light of the day engulfed by pitch black. Everywhere was quiet, for people started retiring for the night, wishing each other goodnight or talking mundane things within the walls of one room.
In her brother’s quarter, Jiang Yanli skimmed quietly across the room with a slow pace, the unabashed grace and elegance of her movements only disrupted by the furrow set stubbornly on her face.
“A’Cheng.”
Even when the pile of works and reports kept doubling, delayed letters and unsent reports accumulated on the table at his side as the poor young man drowned in work, Jiang Cheng did not hesitate to put away the ink and paper as soon as he was done signing the document and offered his sister his undivided attention.
Though tired, he smiled, happy to receive her visit. “A’jie! Did you need anything?”
Jiang Yanli pursed her lips, striding forward with a slow, uncertain pace. “Am I bothering you? I can come later if you want.”
Jiang Cheng shook his head vigorously before he let out a sigh. “No need to, I was about to take a break anyway.”
Finally, he mentioned for her to take a seat by his side, eyeing her worriedly.
“It’s not about me.” she said, hands falling gracefully over her lap. Jiang Cheng knew already whom she wanted to know about, for she would worry to such a level only for her family, and currently they both shared the same feeling of concern for the same person. “I… I actually wanted to ask you if A’Xian got checked up from a doctor after he came back.”
He looked surprised for a moment by the specificity of her question, mulling over the reason that brought Yanli to ask it, before a look of resignation cleared away the doubt. “No. But you know how he is, A’jie, he won’t let us worry about him.”
Yanli shook her head and tightened her fists. “That is not our primary concern. The situation has changed, it is not the same as it was back then before—” her voice broke and she halted, breathing in. “Things have changed, A’Cheng, and he— he looks like he has been living all this time without getting food or sleep. He feels— is too thin and sickly pale, and he always looks…”
"Mad?"
She shook her head. "No, A'Cheng, he looks sad."
At her statemenet, Jiang Cheng furrowed his brows, obtaining a long sigh from his older sibling.
Fidgetting with the hands in her lap, Jiang Yanli finally spoke her mind. “I know why people would think he now has a bad temperament when, before all of this, he used to live so blithely.”
Yanli took a deep breath and met the eyes of her brother with a stubborn, resoluted look of her own. "But the truth is different! For as much people fear him, I know my A'Xian would never raise a finger on anyone, and always help the wronged and fair. He acts only if directly provoked, and you've seen how now everyone is picking on him!" she claimed.
Jiang Cheng averted his gaze, pretty much aware of how illy people were speaking of Wei Wuxian ever since he came back, expertly weilding a power everyone judged to be unortodox and yet eyed with curiosity, resourceful enough to spark jealousy in the most power-hungry.
And yet, no one but himself and his father knew of the harsh truth the boy kept hidden: his brother had lost his golden core, his only means to use spiritual energy and fly on top of his sword, or to even simply unsheate one without a few strikes tiring him out; cultivating resentment had probably been his only choice, the only way to survive in a place as resentful-drenched as the Burial Mounds.
Oblivious to his own inner turmoil, Yanli took a deep breath before she went on again. "Although it is undeniable that his temperament has changed, he is still as selfless and kind at heart! But he's sad, A'Cheng. I can see it every time I look into his eyes, and… it pains me!”
Jiang Cheng looked sorrowful at his sister, but shared her belief. “I wish there was some way to help him, but…” but I've never heard of ways to grow a second core.
He sighed, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, it’s not so easy…”
Yanli’s eyes enlarged at his bold remark, gaze round with curiosity as she was seeming to catch something in his words, a sense of awareness and knowledge she did not possess.
“Do you—“ she swallowed tickly and shoved away the tears. “D-Do you know what happened to him?”
When he opened his mouth but relented, she grabbed his arm and tugged, insisting, shivering. “Please, A’Cheng. I-I need to know…”
Her brother rushed to squeeze her arm with fond affection, trying to soothe her worries, before his resolution loosened and he sighed: there was nothing that was keeping him from telling her, for he knew that, even if he kept the secret, she could learn it from anyone just by asking around the city or listening to cultivators’ loud gossip.
The only thing he would not tell her, for it was a secret Wei Wuxian asked them to keep - with specific mention of his sister as well - was the matter concerning his golden core, or lack thereof.
So, Jiang Cheng readied to disclose the truth. “After Lotus Pier… they say he has been tortured by Wen Chao and then abandoned in the Burial Mounds for some months, given for dead.” Yanli’s eyes boardened with horror. “After that, he stayed near Yiling to recover, and there… he mastered demonic cultivation and got his revenge on Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu.”
She clasped her hands over her mouth, eyes shaking. “Th-The Burial—”
Despite not being a skilled cultivator like her brothers, Yanli too had heard the rumors and voices surrounding the Burial Mounds, so she needn’t be a genius to catch the implications of being abandoned in a place as such where no light or warmth filtered through, where dead entities clung to one’s body and clouded the mind, where the rotten air filled with resentment putrefied one’s core. Not to speak about the “torture” her brother had endured, the scars he might have collected across his body, signs which were carved forever in his skin.
In truth, detailed speeches weren’t necessary to her, as her own eyes could tell her just as well how sickly thin, pale and malnurished Wei Wuxian had become months after his disappearance; to end in such a state, he must have been forced to go on without food at all (Yanli refused to acknolwedge the chance of her A’Xian doing this to himself purposely, but the fear was undeniable with the way he looked and beheaved).
In her arms, that same morning, he had looked so similiar to that tiny, all-bones child her father had brought home from the streets of Yiling so many years ago— but the child had been smiling, even when he was scared and dreaded loneliness, hated the streets, feared dogs.
That youthful, joyful A’Xian could not die as long as Wei Wuxian’s heart still beat in his chest; but it was undeniable how fast he was sinking in below a heap of horror, dangers and wickedness, lulled by false promises of rage and vengeance.
Jiang Yanli was pained to no end, and even though she would give it her all to have her A'Xian back, healthy and happy, she feared she might be late.