Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The soft chitter of birds registered around him as he gradually gained consciousness. He inhaled slowly, breathing in the scent of vegetation and dewy grass. A lazy smile stretched his lips as he burrowed further into the blankets he had laid on the grass and on himself to create the perfect cocoon to sleep in.

When he felt a movement against his side, it was only the crisp scent of charged qi from the array he had put up for protection from elements and danger that allowed him to stay relaxed. He blinked his eyes open, the world a blur of colors before his sight adjusted to his surroundings. A glance showed him a small white rabbit snuggled into his blankets at his side as it nibbled on fresh grass.

Gently, so as to not startle it, he moved his other arm to pet it. A grin of his usual exuberance threatened to break across his face as his gaze softened toward the small animal. The rabbit, while spooked at first, then relaxed into the touch, its nose nudging his hand as it did so. Musing at its familiarity with humans, he curled his body around it, warm sunshine gently shining on his face. The shadow of the tree he had camped under had receded close to its roots, so he estimates it is sometime around midday.

Once he felt fully awake, he got up, successfully startling away the little rabbit. He smiled contentedly, gazing into the darkened bush that the rabbit disappeared into. Peaceful mornings are hard to come by after all, when his shidi takes it upon himself to wake him early every day. He stretched and packed, already missing the peace that night hunts provide ( Oh, the irony! ) but he was also excited to be back at home again.

Once done he made his way to Yiling, where he could buy some food before beginning the final leg of the journey to Lotus Pier. He chewed on a soaked willow branch as he pondered over the nighthunt. While he will have to write a report after he reaches the sect, the nighthunt had been fairly simple so he considered it might not take long. He suppresses a smile as he considers various ways to embellish his story to impress his shidi-shimei . 

By the time he could see the borders of the Burial Mounds, the sun had reached its zenith, shining hot overhead. The path he was on was adjacent to it for a short distance before one could reach Yiling. As he pondered what he should buy at Yiling, his feet came to a stuttering stop as he heard a loud screech.

Immediately pulling his sword out of its scabbard and moving into a ready stance, he faced the direction of the screech. His gaze travelled over the looming resentment of Burial Mounds when he noticed a movement outside the vermillion barrier surrounding it along with a chitter. He frowned as he relaxed his stance, wary still and ready to use it at a moment's notice.

He gingerly approached the barrier. Marveling at the Wen workmanship when a movement caught his eye. Up the mountain, among the dried bamboo, snags and black bushes he notices a figure in the dark that is swaying. Once his gaze settled on it, he heard an unmistakable clink of chains, as if someone were dragging the figure down with multiple chains and with huge force.

He had grown up in Yiling, as unwillingly as it had been at the time and he was well aware of the silent rule that the town's denizens always followed.

• Do not gaze at the mountain for it will lure you to misfortune.

• Do not raise voices near the mountain for it is disrespectful to the dead that reside in it.

• Always leave a small portion of your food at the foot of the mountain as offering once a week.

• Never leave your house after dark, especially so if you hear the voice of a loved one calling your name.

A chill crawled up his spine as he recalled them. He turned to hasten towards the town. Sure, he was a strong cultivator for his age, but he still had a long way to go before he could even dare to venture near the Burial mounds, much less investigate something from inside of it!

He panted, his steps falling in quick tandem, not running quite yet but the hastiness visible in his demeanor. Sure, he was a strong cultivator for his age, but he stood no chance before the behemoth that is the burial mounds. As he hastened towards the town of Yiling, he seldom expected a tendril of resentment to escape his notice and then try to drag him towards the mountain.

Nary a sound slipped past his lips before he found himself beyond the barrier he had been admiring. The sky coagulated with resentment and the world around him was deadened to the point that colors seemed as though they were drained. Freeing himself from the tendril with a kick charged with qi he scrambled to stand and then raced towards the closest place where the barrier was visible to him.

He expected a corpse to block his path. Anticipated for it even.

#

He did not expect for the corpse to resemble him, chunks of flesh clawed away, decaying bone exposed and a half bitten piece of eyeball hanging from his eye with blood thick and dark flowing liberally.

#

His feet came to a stuttering stop as panic and terror blinded his senses. He froze unwittingly, wishing to wretch but unable to move in dread as near transparent chains surrounding the corpse proceeded to drag it towards him.

He worked through his fright and made to step away but bones clamped onto his feet causing him to stumble and fall. Then the corpse was on him.

*

One moment. He smelt the putrid scent of decay, saw the yellowed bones with decaying bone marrow exposed where they are broken, felt the silky rough touch of resentment, tasted the death and terror that lingered in the air and heard the caws of a carrion bird alongside sickening clink of chains.

Then the corpse disintegrated into resentment and it swirled as it entered him through his mouth, nose and ears. The sound of tearing flesh echoed in the dead stillness of the burial mounds and his eyes streamed in silent tears as they became unseeing.

*

He never stood a chance.

Chapter Text

When he gained consciousness, he first felt the thick blood that covered him before he recognized the Sulphur that scorched his nostrils. He could hear the distant growls from ghouls and corpses as he stared at the darkness encroaching the sky, blurry tendrils writhing and congealing. 

'Like the Blood pool but black. Like blood that's gone bad and clotted in clumps. Like the disgusting stickiness and the revulsion it inspired.'

'Why am I alive?'

A shuddering breath left him as he pushed himself to stand. Limbs shaky and eyes unseeing, he stumbled his way to a close by Bamboo thicket and used his feeble strength to break off a stalk from the loose ground. Gripping the tall stick, hands slipping from the blood that coated his hand, he heavily leaned onto it as he walked.

He did not know where he was or how he was there, all he could feel was numbness. Feeling faint, he lurched, nearly snapping his makeshift cane as he made his way to the cave that housed him once.

He felt nothing. He merely followed his instinct, gaze unfocused, unconsciously using resentment to guide him to the ‘Demon Slaughtering Cave.’ He walked heedless of what he was stepping on, crunching on bones and getting his robes torn by thorny bushes that left deep scratches, with lips moving in silent useless prayers that he had been taught as a child to ward off evil.

Reaching the cave, he gazed into it, blinking rapidly to focus through the blurry scene. As a tear fell, he saw an array burnt on the ground of the cave, completely foreign- an unknown factor. With a hitch in his breath, he staggered, letting out an unconscious whimper as he lowered himself onto the floor.

He then traced the array, slowly humming a discordant tune, breath hitching as he finally recognized the array as one of his works.

'Where do I know this tune from? Maybe from Xua—-'

'What was I thinking again?'

He then settled into a proper sitting position as he stripped himself of his clothes (Why do they feel nice against my skin? They should be rough rough-) and then he held the clothes up. His gaze was entranced, watching the blood drip from the garments onto the floor.

When his hands started to shake from holding the garments, he let them fall. Finally naked, he examines his body, at the stained skin from black blood of fierce corpses. He distantly notes that the Wen brand that marked his skin is no longer visible, only a mere shadow ( Or is it a trick of mind? ). Almost all, if not a few of the scars he knows to have stained his skin are missing.

He lets it go. (Is it a dream? Maybe my hell-) Tracing mindless patterns into the blood on his arms, he begins to walk in the direction of the hot stream that he had long ago concealed for various reasons, hoping to clean himself off. His fingers traced his neck before he gathered his loose hair together and used a stray bone mindlessly to affix his hair.

Once he reaches the inner parts of the cave system that ran underneath the burial Mounds, dusty but bare of any skeletons or beings, he slides down the rock outcropping to reach the bubbling spring- uncaring of the scratches he collected. The temperature of the stream is scalding, almost as if it was supposed to be an opposite of the cold pond of Cloud Recess.

As he slid himself into the murky water, his body started to tremble as the heat brought him out of his reverie. He inhaled sharply, the scent of rotten felt like it scraped his nostrils, and then let out a sob. Once he started to cry,  he couldn’t stop, wailing as he scratched at his skin, leaving irritated trails all over.

No No No No nononononoono-

Cradling his skull and squeezing clumps of his he screamed, his voice echoing through the chamber and adding to the chorus that ruled Burial Mounds. He cried and cried until he couldn’t, body trembling in the heat but clear of the blood that stuck to him before.

With shaky steps and pruned skin he left the chamber. When he noticed the bone shard in his hair he made a choked sound, pulling it out roughly to toss it away. He stared at it and took in a sharp breath to center himself. He briskly made his way to collect his clothes, then returned to the inner chamber to wash them and his hair. When he noticed that his pruned skin was nearly untouched by the scars that carelessly marked his skin for the last few years, he stared.

And then stared some more. As if puppeted his hand raised to his dantian . Feeling faint, he mechanically dislodged the spiritual block, allowing his spiritual qi to fill his meridians. This time there weren’t any tears as his face scrunched up, but he gasped and sobbed nonetheless expressing pain and relief alike.

After collecting himself and spreading the clothes to dry, he found himself a spot, considerably evened out in the rocky terrain, where he could spend the night. While sleep took time to claim him, the bubbling sound of the hot spring and distant sounds of the dead followed him when it finally did.

Never had Wei Wuxian felt as raw and scrapped as he did when he woke up. He blinked with force, reaching his hand out to dip in the water, and then gently tapped on his eyelids until the crust soften enough for him to open them. After another bath, he finally paid proper attention to his clothes.

Laying them out in an order, he found a qiankun pouch with his essentials in the pocket of his outermost robe. It was a bit damp from his unceremonious scrubbing the previous day. From it, he retrieved his notes, the one he was sure he maintained when he was a junior.

Noticing the date, determined that it was either time travel or a specialised hell designed for him, he started to investigate around him.  He is certain that he is occupying (possessing?) his younger body. According to the report he had almost illegibly written, he had recently disposed off a few water ghouls terrorising a village some distance away from Yunping.

That murderous family incident! My first night hunt! I had taken the longest way back through Yilling. It was one of my happiest memories…

Sighing, he methodically dressed up, gaze distant and a faint smile. With a glance around the chamber, he walked back the path that led him towards his cave. He holds himself carefully, almost worried that it was all a dream even with the reassuring warmth that suffused him. He knew of a few theories on time travel (If that was what happened at all), but they had all been deemed impossible.

Grimacing as he remembered one of his theories, he hastened his pace to reach the part of the cave where he was sure he had seen something. And then, a stone's throw away from the caves biggest entrance he finds an array, glowing a red so bright it hurt his eyes. He crouches, head tilting as he intently observes the array.

The array had been a product of his most desperate days. He had made it to turn back time, with him as a focal point. Ultimately he had discarded it as it not only needed a copious amount of blood charged with powerful qi , an act that would cause death of any who dared to attempt it, but also a couple of human sacrifices who must consist of very powerful cultivators.

While he certainly had the pain tolerance to do the former, there was the problem of his lack of core and lack of human sacrifices that would not get his somewhat dubious reputation to plunge even below the depths of hell.

'As if it got any better! I am dead!!’

He snorted as he stood up. Walking slowly, he keenly checked his surroundings to find a stick that would not crumble upon simple touch. Once he finds one that looks somewhat sturdy, he hops and bends, swinging his hand to pick it up. A smile graces his face as he realizes that the act was not accompanied by any  ache. He gathered a few talismans and he paced towards the array.

With a clean strike, he cut the tip of his thumb with a sharp rock. Quickly before it healed (Chuckling with delight at the thought of worrying about healing too fast), he finished the talismans that he deemed important. Placing them in their positions, he powered them with a bit of energy to check the condition of the array.

As he examined the array he muttered to himself, “The array, as it stands, seems to be incomplete. Since the array has those useless characters I included to waste some qi, someone just found my notes and didn’t research it. An idiot then? The fact that the array worked still must mean that the caster had a powerful core. I wonder if they would have still cast it if I included the human sacrifice part too.”

‘The array is still unstable. If I don’t do something there will be another calamity to my name wouldn’t it? Just my luck! Even after death I can get no peace!!’

Grimacing, he fell onto his back and sprawled on the floor as he pondered his next course of action. Nose unconsciously wrinkling from the dust, he nodded as he remembered that the Wens were still a threat.

‘ What if war can be avoided? Hmm..The process must be particular though. The dafan Wen are related to the main family anyway, this is technically an easy way out without hurting anyone that I care about….. Or will come to care about? ’

He sighed again, as dramatically as possible. Pouting, he stood up and grabbed the closest bamboo stalk to begin carving chenqing again. As he sliced the stalk with a bit of qi , he paused, blinking in astonishment. Chenqing has been created, bathed in resentment out of need . At that very moment, he had the choice of righteous path and well-

‘ I’ve never wanted to walk the single plank bridge in the first place. The tools I came up must be enough for the task ahead of me. I shall plan that way! ’

A grin stretched his face till he felt pain on his bottom lips and his eyes moved rapidly as he planned and then set his plan into motion.As he quickly left the area, he mused that the Burial Mounds are not particularly far from the Nightless city and a skilled cultivator like him can bridge the gap in half a day if determined. 

‘ If things go sideways I got my teleportation talisman anyway! It’s an idea still but I’ve faced worse odds! ’

Near the boundaries of the mountain, he paused and meditated until the next sun rise. He then began his journey, periodically stopping whenever he noticed an edible fruit in reach.He ate them as he flew and if the exhilaration of having his sword active made his eyes teary and breath shaky, well, there was no one around to notice it anyway!

He reached Nightless city as the sun was at its zenith. He bought a Weimao from a shop keeper before he entered the city, to conceal his identity. Even before he toyed and experimented with resentment, Wen Ruohan had been a powerful cultivator who had killed many. The marks of such deaths littered the place. After scoping out the area around the palace, for there is not other way to describe the huge monstrosity,  he waited for the cover of the night while remaining as unobtrusive as possible.

He enjoyed some spicy local cuisine as he waited, famished from not eating anything for a few days before the fruit that morning. Once the sun set, he broke into the palace cloaked in some clever tricks of his. Once he accessed a secret pathway to Wen Ruohan;s inner chambers, his stance relaxed a bit.

The passage was something Wen Qing had told him on one of the evenings where they were both drunk. While being Wen Ruohan’s doctor wasn’t something she regretted at the time, as she was merely doing her duty, in her wildest dreams she wished to kill him to spare her of her grief. After all, everyone was a woman’s enemy and Wen Ruohan had valued talent above gender, something that can't be said to be the same in the rest of the sects.

‘ She was a surprisingly maudlin yet affectionate drunk. Ah…I miss her. ’

As he reached the chambers, he discreetly scoped the place. Wen Ruohan seemed to have retired early for the night, keen on toying with the Yin Iron he had retrieved from the goddess statue. He held his breath and pressed his lips to prevent his delight from escaping him.

‘ Oh this is too perfect! ’

He used his body binding talisman and twisted the resentment in Yin Iron a bit to successfully incapacitate Wen Ruohan. After knocking him out with a heavy hand, he secured the artefact in his qiankun pouch, improvising at the last minute. A few steps outside and a similar process still, he had with him Wen Zhuliu who was stationed as the body guard outside Wen Ruohan’s chambers.

Whistling to get help, he maintained as little noise as possible to avoid alerting guards a bit further away. When the ghost brides answered his call, he smiled with his teeth. Smuggling two grown men with large builds was no easy feat, but with their helping hand he had managed. They were all too willing, as the man had killed all three sisters alongside everyone in their family in the name of annexing their fathers sect. While their brother remained alive, their pain was too much to be contained.

As he raced against time to get the unconscious men to Burial Mounds for the next part of his plan, he mused that it had been too easy. But then again, while Wei Wuxian had fought a war, developed a new path of cultivation and bought to life impossible tools, Wen Ruohan was a sect leader who had just begun his world domination plans. Whatever security must exist already, stood little chance against him.

‘ But of course, to give credit where it is due, it would have been much harder if Qing-jie did not rant on multiple ways to kill the man every time she got drunk. ’

Marvelling how no one paid attention to a supposedly passerby with a huge cart and giggling girls dressed in red, he wondered why it was too easy. Somehow, with a few more tricks and tricking the guards, he managed to reach his destination by the middle of the night. 

‘Why is this so easy? Would it have been easy to win the war if the sects responded early too?’

Positioning them in the array and decapitating them while removing their cores to lend power to the array passed in the blink of an eye. Conducting the rest of the array, he fed it with surrounding resentful energy until it sizzled out in completion. As it disappeared, he called for the help of three sisters.

From the conversion they had in the journey back, they expressed that despite not knowing him they recognised him.

‘ Whatever that meant. The implications of everything I did is too much. I am NOT going to think about it! ’

Handling them the creative reins on disposing of the bodies within the Nightless city itself, he focused on lending them power to finish the task. Staunchly ignoring their answering giggles, he took to cleaning up the messy floor as they left. Once finished, he retreated to the inner caves where he would not be disturbed.

As he settled to sleep thoughts clouded his mind on the changes that the array went through. After all, he had made a theory and its application seems to be much different. Likely, the implications will also differ. Further, there are little available candidates for a focal point as uniquely situated as himself with nearly all or any of the impossibilities he faced in his life becoming the qualifying factor for part of the array at least.

‘ The caster will surely die at the same age as when they activated the array. Will they even remember the future in entirety? They are not the focus soo… Their golden core will be diminished too, it would likely reach half their potential maybe? Will it be so that they would not be able to talk about it? Possible but not? Is it even possible to spell a person to prevent them from talking about a specific thing?’

“Tomorrow”, he told himself, he would think about it all tomorrow. As he rested his heavy lids, content that he is safe, sleep was quick to claim him.

Chapter Text

Waking up with memories of what had been and what is yet to happen was an experience. Once the sleepiness faded, it was a moment of utter terror and confusion mingled with genuine consternation and apathy to equal measures. While he had technically been functioning on two sets of recent memories ever since he woke up (awakened?) in the past, it felt far more real once he has run out of his determination. The cocktail of emotions only led him to feel bone-deep tiredness.

‘And I just woke up. The day is going to be great at this rate.’

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, mentally shoving all the emotions into a box. He then took a sharp inhale and pushed himself into a standing position with an exhale, releasing an unconscious “HUP!” as he did so.

Eyeing the ominously bubbling spring, he debated if the water would be safe to drink. The first time he had stumbled in here during his first impromptu trip to Burial Mounds, he had been catatonic and simply wanted to wash off the grime and parch his thirst. He had instead ended up out of his mind, hallucinating his past and a fucked-up future. While his present golden core can fight off any possible poison, he would rather not risk it.

He had sealed off the interior in his past-future life for a good reason after all. Annoyed, hoping for the best, he rooted around the mess that is the interior of his Qianqun pouch and was rewarded for his efforts with a half-filled water-skin. Somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear Wen Qing berating him for not drinking enough water. After gurgling some water to rid himself of the stale taste, he drank some and packed up. 

He leisurely strolled out of burial mounds, occasionally stopping to clear his path and stretching as he did so. He donned his Weimao and entered Yiling to buy some street food to sate his hunger. After haggling his food, he walked into the forest and entered a clearing that is well hidden with a clear view of the darkness rising from Burial mounds. 

He sat on the floor and began to whistle. After some time, he just began to wonder if he must buy a new dizi to summon the ghost sisters he had entrusted the task to, when their giggles filled the little clearing. Three joyful yet horrifying figures appeared before him. 

Then the one in the middle crooned, “Oh Laozu! We did not expect you to be so familiar yet foreign. But we remember now and we have fulfilled what you asked!!”

“Oh yes we did!” chimed in the other two sisters, prompting them all to break into giggles. The one on the right then continued, “We took them to their home in that dark place and then we placed their bodies at their doorway!!”

“Oh, how fun it was!” chimed the other two sisters. The last sister then spoke in a lilting tone, “Just as we did so before we did the task now, we pulled the noisy whore too and played ball with his head!!”

“Up the stairs he was kicked, down the stairs he rolled!!” finished the other two and they all broke into giggles again, garishly long grins hidden away with a quick flutter of their bloody and tattered long sleeves.

Despite horrifying imagery that their sweet voices presented, he couldn’t help but be amused at the sisters' exuberance. Internally noting all the complications that might affect the new timeline, he suppressed a sigh. Letting his lips twitch into an involuntary smile, he asked them to continue their story.

With the same exuberance the middle one began again, “We played like that for a while but then the guards came! They screamed and chanted as they tried to rescue the bodies!!”

“Oh, how red their faces were and how they failed!” chanted the other two as they giggled. Then the sister on the right continued, “The sisters are smart so we retreated to watch as they secured bodies and scrambled to call your brother and your family alongside the rest of theirs!!”

‘Brother? Who would- oh! Wen Ning…’

“Oh, how chaotic it was and how helpless they looked!” Chanted the sisters. The last sister then began her part, “When a woman said she wanted to be the leader we pulled her head! And when a man said the same, we pulled him into two!!”

“Yes we did! We did so until only those precious to you are left!” came the finishing chorus as they devolved into giggles again.

Wei Wuxian hummed to show them that he understood and watched them as they dispersed to prance around him in the clearing. He had first found the three at the edge of Burial mounds when he had gone there with the Wen Remnants. They had always followed him after his face off with Wen Ruohan but always remained out of sight due to their shyness. 

After collecting snippets, they slipped here and there and understanding their personalities as he spoke with them more often, he had pieced together their story. Afterall, they had reminded him of his little shimei from Yunmeng and any company was a welcome distraction from the howls of the forgotten dead of Burial Mounds. 

Since many sects faced a similar situation due to the Wen policy of annexation and massacre, he had not been able to find from hearsay as to who the sisters could be. Further, they had seldom mentioned their names to him, only expressing sorrow at the thought of their past. It was hard for him to place their ages as they acted very old sometimes and very childish the rest of the time.

Regardless, he decided that he was grateful for their presence. He took out a small portion of his food and liquor and placed them as offering to the sisters. As they giggled and prodded their little gift, he settled to eat a late lunch. While he didn’t mean for the bloodbath the three had wrought, he cannot fault them since he nary gave any clear instructions. After all, for all their playfulness, the three are brimming with resentful energy.

He hummed in satisfaction despite the meagre flavor of his food. While his present body can practice inedia and did not experience starvation in near past, the memories of the erased future send phantom pangs of hunger. Drawing from past experience, he made sure to eat the food slowly.

Once he is done with his food, he laid back, gazing into the sky. The array he had created had been a dangerous one. While he had created it out of sheer desperation, there had still been uncertainty over its success. Further, the more he had refined it, the more he found out the limitations it had and the stipulations that he either couldn’t do or risk. In the end, while he managed to key it to him, it still remained an ambiguous project.

Given his proclivity to scribble his thoughts on the margins of his journal in an incredibly messy hand, there is no doubt that the castor was unaware of all of this. The requirement of human sacrifice was something he had considered too heinous to include in his notes. This proves that the castor primarily relied on his notes and nothing else.

His notes had also included the possibility of limited time of life for the castor and considering the variability of changes, possibly to worser times and newer enemies, all written to cement his decision to not use the array. All, warnings to any stupid soul considering to use his work. Warnings that failed given his present situation.

‘Likely’ he thought as his eyes followed a lazy cloud, ‘the most deterrent of all conditions is that the castor themselves can never speak of the erased timeline lest their soul be destroyed and that they will be reduced to mediocrity in their new life. A great array as such must require simply more than a strong golden core and knowledge. By then my luck was already shit…’

This was why he had chosen to eliminate the Wen threat for the time being. Both to deny the castor of any advantage in the now derailed war and to remove the worst threat to his peace. The resultant events that could possibly proffer more power to the Dafan Wen are merely a bonus.

He sighs, closing his eyes as his brows furrow.

‘The threat of the Jins is still a problem. Over that there is so much more to---- ughhhhhh!’

He sat up and glared at his hands as his thoughts turned darker. He had spent his first life as a balancing act between an unruly prodigy and an obedient servant, the sect heir’s distraction who soothed his anger.

Yet, for all that he loved his brother enough to sacrifice the golden path for him, he had long since lost the same spark that drove his protective attitude. At first it was because he seldom wanted to darken the sect with an active presence but then it was because of their fundamental differences.

‘It’s not their fault how I feel.’ he thinks as tears blur his sight, ‘but in the end even as Shijie died. All I could think was how I never got what I gave. She might’ve died for me, but why is she- a grieving widow in a battlefield?? She made things worse!!’

He let out a strangled sob as he curled on the ground. His hand covered his mouth as he took heaving breaths. He could feel the ghost sisters trailing their sleeves along his back, likely in worry. His hand clawed at the ground as he twisted to place his forehead on the ground as if to hide himself away. He moved his hands to rest his eyes on each fist as the barrage of complaints he had suppressed for so long started swimming in his eyes and flowed out of his mouth.

‘Shijie loved me but she didn’t help me…’

“Sure, the Jiangs might’ve been in a situation with the Jins but the jins were the ones who sought the engagement! She didn’t consider helping me and instead graced me with her bridal attire!”

“It wasn’t new. I had to survive on scraps of her love as the rest of the Jiangs hurt me, and they were always justified, weren’t they?”

His voice grew in volume as he kneeled where he laid. His hands fisted in his hair as his mutterings grew more hysterical. The ghost sisters looked at each other helplessly.

‘Jiang Cheng claimed to love me but did he ever?’

“Cutting ties with the sect might’ve been my idea but reaching out to help in secret could have been his idea, couldn’t it?! He always asks me to be better, stronger, to bring good things to the sect but he never cares if I am alright. He berates me for acting how I am expected to!”

“Did he. Ever. Trust me?”

His hands trembled as he removed them from his hair. He stared aimlessly like a puppet without its strings, gasping as he cried his heart out.

‘Jiang shushu claimed that he had given me home, love and care.’

“I was given shelter sure! But didn’t it come with chains of debt?! And care? Pah! What care it was with stinging emotions and scarring whip. Maybe I was loved, but not by you shushu, your last words for me is a command…. A command. Did you even care a bit for me ever?”

Snot ran from his nose with tears as he screamed. He hugged himself in a facsimile of comfort as he finally removed the lid on the emotions he had bottled, batted away and avoided. Uttering his feelings made it harder for him to stop and the gentle touches from the ghost sisters only fueled his breakdown. For all the good memories he had of his family, outweighing them are the horrible memories that he had tried his utmost to forget.

As he cried, the sisters fretted over him. With their gazes soft, they bore witness to his misery with the knowledge that sometimes, one must simply let down the burden that weighs the soul heavy. After all, being able to cry freely was a privilege, half the creatures they knew wouldn’t even exist had they let go of their own resentment.

Wei Wuxian cried for all he had faced. For things he deemed both fair and unfair. It doesn’t matter if the life he had lived was fair to him. Above all else, it was sad, and in a clearing far from his old life with Burial Mounds looming a stone’s throw away, he mourned and cried. He gasped out his pain and suffering until he couldn’t and collapsed into an exhausted pile.

He fell into a dreamless sleep and when the night fell, thin tendrils from Burial Mounds reached out to protectively circle the soul THEY had learned to care.