Chapter Text
The day dawns brighter than it should, all things considered. It’s sunny and pretty out, barely even a trace of the smog that usually makes the atmosphere feel so grim. Wei Ying stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Jiang Cheng, robes whipping around his legs, and breathes out a long sigh.
“Are you sure?” Jiang Cheng asks for probably the third time.
“Too late if I’m not,” Wei Ying says, smile twisting his mouth a little. He waves off Jiang Cheng’s concern when he glances over, shaking his head. “No, no, relax, zongzhu. I’m sure.”
“Wei Wuxian…” He trails off, eyebrows coming together in a little frown. “It’s not - if you don’t think-”
“I can do it,” Wei Ying insists. “And the peacock already agreed, so - it’s just a matter of time, right? I can do it.”
“I’m not worried about whether you can start it,” Jiang Cheng mutters, rubbing the heel of his hand hard into his forehead. “Just-”
Jiang Cheng’s worrying is interrupted by a red flag whipping in the wind below, suddenly cut loose of its pole and sallying wildly off into the distance.
“There’s the signal,” Wei Ying says with a certain amount of forced cheer. “You wanna-?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Jiang Cheng says. “I’m gonna be next to Wangji the whole time, you massive embarrassment, so don’t think about anything other than your actual job.”
“Oo-ooh, Wangji, how familiar! Don’t worry, A-Cheng, I won’t watch your back even a little. I’m sure Wangji will look out for you.”
Jiang Cheng gives him a disgusted look and takes the long way down the rocky hill that backs the Jin’s encampment, manfully pretending he’s not turning bright-ass fuchsia. Adorable.
Wei Ying watches him go, the wind tossing his hair into his face with enough force to sting. He gathers it up in one hand and ties it off with the ribbon, shading his eyes to peer over the field.
The Jin are in a good position - well-fortified, if not well-manned - which is probably the only reason they haven’t been squashed like little bugs under the pressure of Wen Ruohan’s army. There’s other questions to be asked there, too, about the apparent friendship between the Wen and the Jin patriarchs, but Wei Ying’s not about to be the one to ask it.
They’re about two days out from the Nie embankment on foot, and it’s been beyond strange travelling with his brother and Lan Zhan both, who snipe at each other like a fucking married couple. He’d spent more than a few hours watching them argue back and forth about the right and wrong way to boil water for soup - Jiang Cheng had spoken loudly and vigorously in favor of one thing, and Lan Zhan had made disparaging little noises and spoken for the exact same thing, and yet somehow they had still argued about it?
Wei Ying doesn’t get it at all. Lan Zhan had been smiling towards the end? Jiang Cheng’s cheekbones had been flushed? -- He doesn’t want to think about it. It’s only been a couple of days, but he misses Nie Mingjue’s steady presence in a way he really would prefer not to contemplate too deeply.
Jin Zixuan had started out confused about why they’d come, transitioned into furiously embarrassed, and settled into something closer to resignation. He’d known, as Nie Mingjue had suspected all along, that the Jin had under-committed to the campaign.
My father, He’d said delicately, and then trailed off. -- Perhaps if he will not listen to reason, he will listen to you.
Which - rude, alright, but fair. Jin Guangshan had clearly needed something to shift the balance to change his mind.
Wei Ying is here to shift the balance. So to speak. He hunkers a little lower behind the rocks, elbows braced on his knees (don’t get caught, he thinks, faintly amused, as if it’s going to be an option. It will either happen or it won't).
He purses his lips and whistles, low enough to be snatched by the wind and carried off, and then spiraling higher and higher until it’s less a drone and more of a shrill little thing, something that says, clawing, don’t you have something you want? Resentful energy comes on the tail of it, drawn to someone who knows what it means to make sacrifices, and it eddies around Wei Ying’s legs in a flurry.
He changes the pitch again, pushes his direction into the tone - aren’t you angry, he asks it, and resentful energy isn’t quite sentient but it’s not quite not, either. Aren’t you tired of being alone, he pitches the whistle all the way down and the resentful energy pools around his feet, writhing with the sensation of yesyesyesyesYESYES-
He pauses to take a breath and it shivers all at once, all of the spirits that have clawed together at his call, and he feels a touch - just a touch, a little tug - at his ankle. Testing. He shivers and whistles again, short and sharp and loud, bright release, and the resentful energy shudders again, indecisive, before it tears off over the hill to find -
Wen Ruohan’s army, milling around and waiting for orders, because they’re not stupid enough to push a choke point unless Wei Ying drags them to it, unless he brings them to be thrown on Jin blades and to push the Jin encampment with no heed for their continued existence. There’s a reason that Wen Ruohan wouldn’t push this point so daringly - strategically, it’s a nightmare. The upside to taking out a chunk of the Jin isn’t worth the loss of so many bodies, even Wen bodies, which are unfortunately numerous.
But Wei Ying doesn’t care about that. He can’t.
Aren’t you angry, He calls to the resentful energy, and it snakes its way into the ranks of Wen Ruohan’s army, sliding up their spines and their cores and into the heart of them. He has them, he has them, like a thousand points of light all dragging together into one condensed mind that he can grab and pull at. There’s so much awareness it makes him dizzy, swaying in his hiding place, but he needs - he needs. Come, come here, you’re angry, let me feed you, I will help you, come -
They come. It’s two or three at first, turning from their fires to look at the no-man’s land between their encampment and the Jin’s blockade, and then fifteen, fifty, a hundred, five hundred. There are so many people looking with Wei Ying’s eyes. He whistles and tugs at the hooks of resentment in their chests, the things that keep them awake at night, the resentful spirit's hunger for humanity, and the splinter of Wen Ruohan's army stands and turns and comes.
It starts with an alarmed shout from a Jin scout, who notices two moments too late to stop an arrow, set alight with oil and a spark, from hitting the wooden barricade behind which he’s posted. A bell, in the camp, clangs.
Wei Ying can’t spare a thought to Jiang Cheng, to anyone, because he’s coughing around the blood that’s dripping down the back of his throat and pulling Wen Ruohan’s western flank close, close, like lambs to the slaughter.
They break on the shore of the Jin’s barricade and smash it utterly, because when a body doesn’t care how it’s broken, it’s nothing more than a weapon. The Jin cultivators scatter and scream and go for their weapons, because they hadn’t been expecting an attack, and no one had been prepared. Wei Ying has to yank at the front line of the army, blood pooling on his tongue, to keep those scurrying Jin from getting run through.
No deaths. No deaths. As few as possible. It’s hard. His head is - it -
He licks his teeth and bites his tongue so the spark of pain can bring him back to himself, whistling a low mourning note to hold the resentful energy more closely in check, and swallows the blood.
He just - just a little bit, he just has to wait a little bit longer, and then he can join them in the camp and join the fight against what he’s brought. They’d agreed, all of them had, that he’d need to be a part of the battle - otherwise, they would not win. They couldn’t. And it would look suspicious if they did.
There’s a sharp cry from below, human and high, and it feels like it’s breaking the silence even though it’s not silent at all. It’s painfully loud with the rattle and cry of armor and swords. Wei Ying drags his wrist across his face to smear the blood dripping from his nose. He can’t look up, because if he looks up, he won’t be able to concentrate, and he needs -
He shudders at the burden of it, the clawing inside of him of a thousand spirits that say hungry scared stop hurts want givegiveGIVEGIVE MORE -
Wait, he wants to tell it, but he can’t - resentful spirits don’t know what it means to be patient. They know hunger and pain and loss and clawing, desperate need for fulfillment, and it’s easy to make a thousand promises that can still rip him up inside.
There’s a sharp whistle from below and he sags with relief, scrambling out of his hiding place and skidding down the hill. He keeps as tight a leash as he can while he moves but it’s next to impossible, and he can feel his reins slipping as he runs. Every juddering step is another blow to his concentration, and the howl of the resentment rises up around him like something physical.
“Wei Ying!” Lan Zhan’s voice has a way of cutting through the crowd, and he catches Wei Ying around the biceps before he has time to fully crumple. “Focus.”
Wei Ying takes a sharp breath, gags on blood, and nods. Lan Zhan shakes him like a naughty kitten before spinning off to protect Jiang Cheng’s back against the encroaching army that Wei Ying has called.
It gets - easier. He can take out Chenqing then, without fear of being recognized, and the resentful energy comes so much more easily, called by its own. I know, he plays for the spirits that have their claws in Wen Ruohan’s army, I know, I know, I know. He plays them a hymn to understanding their pain, to recognizing and seeing their sorrow. It’s almost like the Lan’s cultivation, and the idea of Lan Qiren’s expression at that comparison is almost enough to make him smile.
He plays for them to convince the spirits possessing the army to tear them apart, instead of the Jin. He drags his control of them in a hairpin turn and makes them fall on each other with shrieks of despair and agony, and he tries not to think about the wet rip of flesh that he can hear over the sound of the dizi.
“You’re bleeding,” Jiang Cheng gasps the next time they meet. His sword is dripping in blood, slippery down his hand, and Wei Ying stares at it, dazed. Jiang Cheng reaches with a bloody hand and grips the side of Wei Ying’s head, shaking him gently. “Wei Wuxian.”
Wei Ying coughs around the next note he plays and has to shake off Jiang Cheng’s hand to spit blood, politely off to the side instead of on Jiang Cheng’s robes. Not that it’d make much difference. They’re both covered in gore.
“Should call me shixiong,” He rasps, and tips his head back on a laugh when Jiang Cheng gives him a wild sort of look. “Focus, focus. Nearly there.”
They’re not, really, but it’s close enough. They were always going to win.
The hardest part is convincing the resentful energy, the thousands of spirits that Wei Ying has dragged up and pieced together, that it’s satisfied with the remnants of Wen Ruohan’s western flank, instead of tearing into the Jin cultivators standing by so readily. He plays and plays and plays, eddying up and down in trills and pleading flourishes, until at last the resentment slips away into nothing and the battlefield is left to men and nothing else.
Jin Zixuan takes a blade to the shoulder in the last fifteen minutes of the sortie, as intended, and makes a scene and a half of it, also as intended. The fight ends and suddenly there’s silence, cultivators panting and staring at each other. There is not a single golden robe on the ground, unless one were to count Jin Zixuan, falling to his knees.
He looks very noble and pale, sinking to the dirt clutching his shoulder (not of his sword arm, because regardless of Wei Ying’s personal feelings on him, he doesn’t believe in cutting a man’s career short for theater), and his mother shrieks when she emerges from a tent and sees him. It’s so perfectly dramatic that one would think she’d been let in on the secret of it.
Wei Ying wipes his bloody chin on his shoulder and looks at Lan Zhan, who’s gore-covered from throat to shins, all his pristine white and blue dyed a muddy brown. Jiang Cheng doesn’t look much better, all his royal Yunmeng purple made sludgy with blood.
“Let’s never do that again,” Wei Ying rasps, quiet as he can, and shoves Chenqing into his belt. He coughs to clear his throat and has to swallow blood back down, which makes him wish he didn’t have a body to be nauseated in. “Fuck.”
Jiang Cheng wipes his face with a wrist and comes away worse for it. He grimaces. “Fuck.”
Lan Zhan looks like he’s going to sheathe his sword, hesitates at the sheer amount of gore on it, and ends up just standing awkwardly. He doesn’t say fuck, but he projects an aura of it, anyway.
“Did Zixuan die?” Jiang Cheng asks, sounding a little bit like he couldn’t give less of a fuck. Lan Zhan flicks him a scolding look and Jiang Cheng furrows his eyebrows back, and they have a completely silent argument that sort of makes Wei Ying want to set himself on fire.
“No,” He says, trying to break the tension between them. “Madam Jin’s screaming, but he’s fine.” I was careful, he doesn’t say, because the point of subterfuge is to keep it on the low-down.
He wants to take a bath. He wants to sleep for a million years. He really, really, deeply wants to see Nie Mingjue. He can do - one of those things.
“I’m gonna go dunk myself in that river,” He says to no one in particular, because Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng have engaged in another uncomfortably charged staring contest. He remembers, rather abruptly, that Jiang Cheng had said something about how often they’d been thrown together on missions that couldn’t be entrusted to anyone else.
Suddenly, things make so much sense.
“Not too long,” Jiang Cheng says, blinking himself back to awareness for a moment. “You’ll get cold.”
Wei Ying waves a hand lackadaisically and staggers off in the direction of the closest source of clean water, electing not to engage with the mother-henning.
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They’re all weary to the bone, trying to tidy up the nightmare of the Jin encampment, and Wei Ying passes out before Lan Zhan does, which is just embarrassing. He can already hear the whispers when he wakes up, half-buried in stolen blankets, and they’re- not what he’d been expecting, considering how badly most of his plans had gone to date.
Only two-hundred cultivators, Someone whispers from outside his tent as he struggles into his robes, stiff with not-enough-actual-washing. Like he wanted us to die -
Wei Ying pulls his belt tighter, eyebrows coming together in a frown. It’s the same outside, but- more.
“- Wouldn’t have been able to do anything,” Another cultivator mutters, hiding behind their hand, “If it weren’t for - you know -”
“Ssh,” His partner hisses at him, pushing him lower, “Don’t talk about it so loud, they’ll hear.”
Wei Ying is hearing. He’s hearing and he’s confused.
The words 'Jin-zongzhu' are the beginning of half the rumors, and they’re all - very, very negative. That he’d left them to die. That he’s intentionally trying to thin out his sect. That he’d rather pinch pennies than save lives. They’re probably not all true, but they’re murmured with a great deal of conviction, and it really doesn’t matter if they’re true or not.
The other half of the rumors, bewilderingly, are about how terribly, wonderfully heroic he is, how brave and strong Lan Zhan is, what a remarkable leader and cultivator Jiang Cheng is. Hearing positive adjectives associated with his name is fucking bizarre, after so long having his hems spit on, and Wei Ying doesn’t quite know what to do with it. He wonders, somewhat hysterically, if these are the things that Nie Huaisang had been referring to when he'd mentioned setting things in motion.
Jin Zixuan is, of course, elevated nearly to martyr status, even though he’s not even dead. Wei Ying peeks into the tent where he’s convalescing and is deeply amused to see him looking remarkably aggrieved by the sheer number of gifts and get-well-soons he’s been plied with.
Wei Ying plunks himself down at Jin Zixuan’s bedside and tucks his fingers under his own chin, blinking at him winsomely. If Jin Zixuan looks disgruntled at being bed-bound, then he looks downright churlish when Wei Ying starts fluttering his eyelashes.
“Yes,” Jin Zixuan says before Wei Ying can even ask, presumably to try and get him the fuck out of the tent. “I think it worked. My mother’s worked herself up so much she nearly turned purple.”
“Have you heard the rumors?” Wei Ying asks, mostly because he wants to confirm that he’s not hallucinating them. Jin Zixuan rolls his eyes, of all things. Wei Ying wonders what fucking reality he’s inhabiting.
“Who hasn’t? They want to elevate you to some sort of patriarch, you know.”
Wei Ying recoils with a grimace. “Augh, of where? The fucking western front of Qishan? No, thank you.”
Jin Zixuan coughs a laugh and barely flinches, even when it jars his shoulder. Wei Ying really had been careful. “Not especially auspicious, hey? In any case, the fact that not a single Jin died is -”
“Really fucking unlikely,” Wei Ying says darkly, but he can’t bring himself to think that maybe they should have killed a disciple or two for authenticity’s sake. A few men might be worth an army, but Wei Ying doesn’t want to be the one making that choice. He’ll leave that up to actual leaders.
Jin Zixuan smirks, but doesn’t disagree. “We’ll pretend,” He says, pitching his voice low like it’s a secret, “That it’s because the Jin are truly just remarkable swordsmen, hm?”
Wei Ying is startled to find that he doesn’t hate Jin Zixuan when they’re not sniping at each other over his treatment of Jiang Yanli. He’s sort of appalled at himself at this revelation.
“I need to get back to - uh. Back.” He says instead of telling Jin Zixuan maybe you’re not that much of a piece of shit after all. “Want me to pass anything on?”
Jin Zuxuan considers this and shakes his head. “I’ll send word when I hear back from my father.”
He, Lan Zhan, and Jiang Cheng leave no more than an hour later, juggling hot ba ming between two hands while they walk. They make good time - the sky’s still clear and bright, it’s warm, there are even bird chirping. They make camp the first night and it’s almost pleasant, having company in the warm glow of the fire.
The next morning, after they pack the camp back up, Wei Ying’s already tired of the quiet.
“I told you it’d be fine,” Wei Ying says, walking backwards along the narrow, winding path. Jiang Cheng has to keep grabbing him to keep him from tripping straight into the weeds, but that’s not nearly enough to make Wei Ying turn around. “It was totally fine!”
“You were bleeding from your mouth,” Jiang Cheng says, mouth a flat, dissatisfied line. “And your nose, and basically crying blood, and -”
“Shut up, wasn’t,” Wei Ying gasps, and leans to punch Jiang Cheng in the shoulder.
“Hm,” Lan Zhan says, which is about as much as Lan Zhan ever seems to say. “It was fine.”
Wei Ying makes a triumphant noise and gestures, like heyo! Lan Zhan gives him a look.
“Nothing more than fine. You did look unwell. You exhausted yourself.”
Wei Ying presses his hands together because - yes. Not untrue. But he hadn’t died, had he, and he’d kept his promise. It had been fine. He hadn’t even lost his mind a little bit (for all that he can still feel the clawing hunger inside him for something that he can’t quite name, for rest and restitution of spirits long dead), and they were nearly back to the established forward camp.
“Aah, Lan Zhan, did I remember to thank you for watching my sect leader’s back? This humble one is in your debt, gongzi.”
Lan Zhan gives him a deeply unimpressed look. “Jiang-zongzhu can protect himself admirably. Perhaps he would be able to focus more if you were distracting him less.”
Wei Ying gapes at him, too startled to protest, and finally flips around to walk the right way around so Jiang Cheng can stop catching him when he trips.
They’re still a few li out when they hear the very faint sound of metal on metal. Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan glance at each other, a tiny darting thing, and Wei Ying tips forward to listen more closely.
“Is there - a fight?” He asks, bewildered. “But he was supposed to wait until we came back with confirmation from the Jin."
Jiang Cheng swears under his breath, casting a look behind himself. “Yeah, shit changes - come on, we need to go, if there’s actually something to worry about, we need to move.”
They hurry and it’s - it’s bad. They come over the ridge and it’s a nightmare, even in the brutal sunshine. Worse, almost, for not being so cloudy. It’s as if all of the lives that Wei Ying had spared in the Jin camp had been taken in equal measure here, Nie corpses sprawled out so thickly around the outer perimeter it’s like a field of grey robes and red gore, rather than dirt.
“Fuck,” Wei Ying says, helpless, and starts to run. His heart pounds a tattoo on the inside of his chest, something like Mingjue Mingjue Mingjue, and he ignores Jiang Cheng’s startled shout behind him.
══════════════════
Nie Mingjue has blood sheeting into one eye and is really starting to regret thinking that today might have been a good day. He’d lost track of Huaisang ages ago, too long ago, he has no idea where the fuck his brother is and his arm is going numb with Baxia’s weight. He has to back over his shidi’s corpses because he has run out of advantages to press and fuck, fuck, he needs to find Huaisang but he’s -
Outnumbered. Not outmatched, never, but outnumbered, fuck, there are so many people and they hadn’t been ready at all. They hadn’t been expecting an attack, and the irony doesn’t escape him that Wen Ruohan’s strategist and Wei Wuxian had had the same plan at nearly the same time on different fronts and for different sides.
He ducks a wide sword-swing and kicks the wielder back, whirling away from another swing and throwing Baxia straight through a Wen cultivator who goes down with a gurgle. It doesn’t make him any less fucked, really - it’s more… what? Drawing out the inevitable?
He’s sweating blood into his own eyes, squinting against the bright glare of the sun off the fallen sabers of his sect (fuck, fuck, fuck -), when suddenly the sun -
The sun goes out.
Nie Mingjue takes advantage of the distraction to pull Baxia out of the hapless cultivator with a disgusting sucking noise and kill the two that are harrying him like dogs. The sky is painted black behind their heads, deep roiling clouds that can’t be natural under any circumstances but especially not now, on what had been a perfect, cloudless day.
Something - someone? No, Mingjue thinks, because he refuses to believe that something that can make that noise could still be human - screams, high and tearing and too-loud. It echoes over the entire field, over the camp, over the corpses, over everything.
The darkness falls and rolls in like the tide, swamping over tents and putting out campfires, racing through the pathways that Nie Mingjue and his cultivators had walked for weeks.
Another shrill note, a wail, and suddenly the darkness freezes and writhes and sinks into the corpses of Mingjue’s fallen sect members and Wen alike. They peel themselves off the ground jerkily, like puppets, and Mingjue watches the man he'd just killed try to drag himself upright, his spine neatly severed. The young man swivels like he’s on a string, eyes sliding straight over Nie Mingjue and his loose grip on Baxia, to face the west, and then takes off running, sheeting blood.
Cultivator’s corpses around him pick themselves up and shamble forward, or crawl if they can’t walk, and Nie Mingjue takes a stutter-step back at the horror of it, climbing up his throat. There’s something that doesn’t let him stop watching - respect, maybe, doing his shidi the service of watching them throw their corpses at an enemy they’re no longer cognizant of.
A scream - no, Nie Mingjue realizes, it’s not a scream. A dizi, amplified far past reality, played with thin desperation. The dizi spirals higher and as a unit the corpses turn to face the Wen army, who are already starting to scramble to break ranks.
They crash into the Wen like a tide and every single one they kill comes back as one of them. Nie Mingjue watches a boy, fifteen at best, maybe a cook, not a cultivator, punch a hand straight through a sunburst insignia and come out the other side. The Wen cultivator slumps with a gasp but doesn’t even have time to spit the blood before he’s reanimated by - by what must be Wei Wuxian. It couldn’t be anyone else.
Distantly, Nie Mingjue can hear screaming, shouting, can feel the roiling resentful energy of something too vast to be just Wei Wuxian alone, but he can’t do anything but watch helplessly while the corpses of his disciples claw the eyes out of Wen cultivators and then Wen cultivators turn on their own ranks and devour them.
Nothing is spared. Living Nie cultivators are torn apart like wet tissue paper. It is - horrifying. Inevitable. There is nothing that he can do and for the second time in his life (the first had been learning about the mingling curse and blessing of the saber spirit), Nie Mingjue feels painfully helpless.
“-jue, Mingjue, da-ge!” He hears, and Nie Mingjue whips around to catch Nie Huaisang, stumbling out of the gloom with his saber in one hand. “What, what’s -”
Nie Mingjue shakes his head and drags him forward, heading west like he’s being called, and he doesn’t even know what to say to his brother. He doesn’t know how to explain what he needs to do because he doesn’t even know himself, really - all he knows is that Wei Wuxian needs help, or will need help, because. Because.
He likes to think that at this point, after so long of waking up with Wei Wuxian curled into him, he knows him. He knows that Wei Wuxian wouldn’t just -
He wouldn’t.
“Da-ge,” Huaisang says, and Nie Mingjue shakes himself out of it to look at him, at least. “I- let me go, let me find the people who- who survived the ambush, alright?”
Mingjue wavers, because he knows what’s right and he knows what he wants and they are not the same. ‘I’ll go with you,” He says. In the end, he’s a sect leader to his core.
Huaisang shakes his head hard and shoves Nie Mingjue two steps left, and Mingjue is startled enough to let him. “Don’t be stupid, are you serious? Go deal with Wei-xiong, are you fucking kidding me?”
Nie Mingjue stares at him and breathes out a soft, only sort-of panicky noise. “Okay,” He says, and takes his brother by the shoulders. “Be safe, be smart - didi, I need you to -” He takes a long, deep breath. “I need you to be safe. See if you can find Wangji or Jiang Wanyin, if Wei Wuxian’s back, so are they.”
Nie Huaisang nods sharply and twists out from under Nie Mingjue’s hands. Nie Mingjue watches him until he fades back into the billowing gloom, then turns to face the west, where he can just barely see Wei Wuxian’s silhouette at the top of an outcropping, lit from behind by fire.
It’s a much easier trip than it should be. There are no cultivators between the two of them, and the corpses ignore him completely as they claw themselves off the ground and towards the Wen. Nie Mingjue reaches the ridge so much more quickly than he should, and finds Jiang Wanyin at the bottom, clutching his ribs but holding his sword with a furious determination.
“I won’t let you -” He cuts himself off to cough, fingers spasming against his side, “He’s not, it’s not his fault, he’s helping, I won’t let you do anything to him.”
Nie Mingjue stares at him and says, filter entirely absent with the shock of the day, “Are you a fucking idiot, boy, move so I can save your stupid brother.”
Jiang Wanyin says, bewildered, “Don’t call me ‘boy’,” but he moves so Nie Mingjue literally could not care less.
Nie Mingjue climbs. The thrum of resentment gets stronger with every step, until he can feel it in his teeth, in his fingertips, everywhere. He crests the hill and the yin tiger tally is waiting for him, spiraling gently just out of Wei Wuxian’s grasp.
Wei Wuxian does not look well. It’s sort of the understatement of a lifetime, but it’s what stands out first and foremost to Nie Mingjue, who has made it his business to know every slender line of him.
Wei Ying looks agonized, red ribbon a slash of color against the inky dark of his hair. The unnatural wind tears around him, whips into his mouth when he turns to Nie Mingjue and opens it to say -
“ Da-ge, ” He whispers, words snatched away by the howl of the wind. Mingjue can read them in the shape of his mouth.
Wei Wuxian is pale like Nie Mingjue has never seen him and it becomes clear why, exactly, when he twists and his ribbon isn’t the only red on him. Someone’s caught him with a sword in the side and it’s bad, fuck, it looks bad. The fact that he’s standing at all is a miracle, and Nie Mingjue can’t stop looking at him and thinking he doesn’t have a core.
People without cores don’t come back from injuries like that. He can’t think past it. Wei Wuxian’s grip is loose on his dizi and he looks like maybe he’s been dying the whole time he’s been playing, winning a fight for Nie Mingjue that he doesn’t plan to see the end of.
“Wei Wuxian,” Nie Mingjue says, and takes a step forward just in time to catch Wei Wuxian as he crumples. The yin tiger tally is still shriekingly powerful, agonizing to be near, but Nie Mingjue doesn’t know what to do with Wei Wuxian bleeding out in his arms. “Wei Wuxian, A-Xian-”
Wei Wuxian’s eyes flutter open and he gasps an agonized little noise, clutching for Nie Mingjue’s robes. “Da-ge, I’m -”
Nie Mingjue’s not much of a healer but he knows enough for this, putting pressure on the wound and cradling Wei Wuxian with the other arm. It’s disgusting - he’s already slippery with blood, and it’s just blood on blood, it’s horrible, but the spiritual power that he can spare is enough to help.
“Wei Wuxian, can you stop it? I need you to stop it, I need you to turn it off, let it go, it's killing you -”
Wei Wuxian looks painfully confused, reaching to touch Nie Mingjue’s cheekbone, the corner of his mouth. “I can’t,” He says, helpless and small and scared. “I don’t know how.”
Nie Mingjue looks at him and imagines corpses tearing his brother apart, tearing Wei Wuxian’s brother apart, clawing out of the ground and consuming the world because Wei Wuxian doesn’t know how to stop it and he’s dying, he’s dying, Nie Mingjue hasn’t felt such clawing panic before in his life -
“You do,” He says, helpless, “You do, you’re good, you do know, you can do it. I know you can.”
Wei Wuxian hushes him and smears a hand across Nie Mingjue’s face, painting his own blood from one of Mingjue’s cheekbones to the other. “Don’t cry,” He says, tiny and desperate. “Don’t, I can - let me try, I’ll try, give it to me.”
Nie Mingjue doesn’t want to touch it. His skin crawls at the thought of it on his skin, but he’s out of options and they’re running out of time. He has to ignore Wei Wuxian’s little gasp of pain when he leans forward to grab the tally and it buzzes an icy-cold shock up his arm, so painful his body wants to let it go immediately.
Wei Wuxian hiccups in agony when he shifts to take it, the movement jarring his ribs, but he cups it to his chest and rocks into it, mouthing to it like someone might whisper comfort to a child. There’s nothing for Nie Mingjue to do but tilt down to press his mouth to Wei Wuxian’s hairline, wishing, helplessly, for a miracle.
The wind sputters out. Below, down the sweep of the ridge, there is an echoing silence.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Wei Wuxian breathes, and breaks the tally cleanly apart, shoving half into Nie Mingjue’s hands. “Take this, take it, I can’t- I can’t-” He sounds almost sick with fear over it, over having any part of it, but Mingjue shakes his head and shoves it back at him.
“Give it to your brother,” He says, rough, and curls Wei Wuxian’s fingers around the two halves when they try to go lax. “It belongs with your sect, don’t - I don’t want it.”
Wei Wuxian’s eyes slide closed and he breathes a slow breath. In, out. It makes him wince and make a tiny, pained little noise. “Hurts. Da-ge, it -”
“I know,” Nie Mingjue says, putting as much pressure as he dares on the gash in Wei Wuxian’s side. “I know, we’ll - it’ll be okay. I’ll take care of you.” He feeds his spiritual energy into the bottomless cup of Wei Wuxian’s body and watches the sky as the clouds start to clear.
══════════════════
Wei Ying tosses himself into Nie Mingjue’s lap and laughs when he startles, taking Mingjue’s wrists in his palms and placing them on his waist, one at a time.
“I’m so mad at you,” He informs Mingjue very cheerfully, which doesn’t sound terribly convincing, but he doesn’t especially want to try again.
Nie Mingjue looks at his forehead in consternation, because Wei Ying is too close to look anywhere else.
“What did I do this time?” He asks, hover-handing over the place a Wen cultivator’s sword had gone into and out of Wei Ying’s side, clean through-and-through. He’s still careful there, even after the time spent healing, and if it weren’t so precious Wei Ying would have asked him to stop.
“You! You know what you did!” He pulls back a little, bracing his hands on Nie Mingjue’s chest for balance, and sees on Mingjue’s face that, actually, he has no fucking clue what Wei Ying’s talking about. “Or - hm, no? Okay, well - well!” He squirms uncomfortably, trying to figure out how to start the conversation without the main hook of it.
Nie Mingjue slides his hands up to cup beneath Wei Ying’s shoulder blades and squeezes gently. “The point, A-Xian.”
“I told Jiang Cheng about- about the core thing.” It had been a dizzying relief, at the time, even if it hadn’t been the whole truth. He couldn’t leave it between them anymore, the lies about why he wouldn’t carry his sword and why he couldn’t help rebuild and why he was so fragile, why it had taken him nearly a month and a half to only mostly-heal rather than a few days at best. He hadn’t told him about - about Jiang Cheng’s core. He couldn’t. Probably wouldn’t ever.
But he’d told him enough, enough to be honest.
“Mm?” Nie Mingjue makes an encouraging noise, feathering a kiss against Wei Ying’s hairline. Wei Ying squirms with pleasure and drapes his arms around Nie Mingjue’s neck, done with maintaining the facade of annoyance.
“And he said that he already knew, and that he’d been waiting for me to tell him.” He doesn’t keep the vague offense out of his voice. Nie Mingjue shakes with what can only be poorly-stifled laughter, and Wei Ying stretches up to bite him hard on the cheekbone. “How the fuck could he already know!”
“You were pretty obvious,” Nie Mingjue says, because he’s rude, and curves his fingertips into the line of Wei Ying’s shoulder blades. “Upon reflection, I’m not entirely sure how everyone doesn’t know? Huaisang clocked it from half a li away.”
“How!?” Wei Ying gasps, outraged. He’s been careful.
“Probably from all those times you didn’t bring your sword to a war,” Nie Mingjue says thoughtfully, scooting back so he can lean against his travel chest. “Or the time you didn’t want to fly by sword. Or the time everyone took turns dumping spiritual energy into your stupid, skinny body and it didn’t circulate anywhere.”
Wei Ying mouths an ‘oh’. When it’s laid out that way, he supposes. “Well.”
“Well,” Nie Mingjue agrees, and leans in to kiss him soundly. “You know, I think we should talk about something else?”
“Oh, do you,” Wei Ying laughs, and lets Nie Mingjue roll him over, gently as anything. “Is it about having sex with me?”
Nie Mingjue hums, contemplative, and says, “Actually, it’s about how I’m gonna ask your brother if I can court you properly.”
Wei Ying wheezes, helpless, and sputters when Mingjue drops a friendly kiss on the bridge of his nose.