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He knows it's not meant to last. This stalemate, he just needs to hold on for a little while. He can make Lan Wangji help, maybe. If they invited him to Jin Ling’s hundred days celebration, it means things are looking up.
He's still thinking this when he's ambushed. The arrow nearly hitting him.
Then he thinks, maybe there’s still a chance; Jin Zixuan sounds convincing before blood starts coming out from his mouth.
He doesn't think about anything afterwards. Not when Wen Qing explains her plan, not when he loses consciousness, his last thought is that there must be a way. There is always a way.
He wakes up as Wen Qing had promised, three days too late. He doesn't waste time and runs towards Nightless City.
The hanging bodies of second cousin and granny Wen meet him at the entrance.
He refuses to remember them like that.
But the world needs to never forget them.
They make a toast; they swear an oath. How kind is history with victors, Wei Wuxian thinks bitterly as he sees the Jins scatter the ashes of Wen Qing and Wen Ning in the wind.
They shoot an arrow at him, it’s the excuse he needs, life for life, blood for blood. And the Wens had shed enough for him to take all of theirs.
He puts Chenqing to his lips and calls the resentful energy to him; he lets it surround him and fill his lungs, it makes his pain sharper, but also his mind. He can see them try to fight back, the white of Gusu Lan, the distinguished gold of the Jins, even the purple and blue of the Jiangs. He can spare some of them for now.
It is until he sees a white figure that shouldn't be there that his control slips, shijie is looking for him when a blade hits her from the back. He goes to her, Jiang Cheng reaches her first, crying. Wei Wuxian realizes he needs to stop this; he can stop this. He needs to get the Jiangs to safety. He tries to call in the yin energy again, this time to make a path for them, he can take his revenge once they are safe. They can't be here, they can't, shijie is crying, she cradles his face lovingly. There is a shout from behind and a sword falls in the spot where he was.
The first day he was in lotus pier Jiang Cheng had been so mad at him he had thrown his stuff outside and forbid him entering his room. He had runaway, sure that Jiang Fenmian would make him leave the next day. Hating the boy in the rich silk nightclothes and his stupid dogs.
But Jiang Cheng, despite his harsh words and hateful behavior, had gone looking for him, he had gone for him and had scrapped his hands and knees trying to find him; an awful gash on his head spoke of his worry.
The same boy had gone with him through his childhood, stuck to him even on his craziest schemes. They had shared the joys and the punishment together. He had taken it all along with Wei Wuxian.
The boy had risked visiting in the Burial Mounds, begged Wei Wuxian to go with him, to let him protect him. And he had tried, had taken Jiang Yanli to meet Wei Wuxian, had helped in giving reasons for the Jins to let him come to the celebration of his nephew.
Wei Wuxian was family, and there wasn't anything more important for his shidi than his family.
The sword had fallen, but Jiang Cheng had pushed him out of the way, the sword had fallen, cutting Jiang Cheng's neck clean.
The man wielding the sword had recoiled at the sight of the blood of a sect leader spilling in front of him.
It was too late. It was coming out of Jiang Cheng too fast, too much even for his golden core to undo the damage.
Wei Wuxian heart stopped beating, the earth stood still.
He had endured the pain of having his golden core removed for two nights and three days, and there wasn't a single day in which he didn't feel the cold space where it once was.
But the torture that he had endured hadn't prepared him for this. His breath hitched, his hands were shaking, he felt his soul breaking into a thousand jagged pieces at seeing Jiang Cheng look so young and scared, his face getting paler as blood kept trickling from his wound.
Shijie weeps, even Lan Wangji hovering close by is calling out to him. But all Wei Wuxian can hear is the terrible gurgles Jiang Cheng makes. He holds him, putting his hand in the gash, uselessly trying to stop the bleeding. He knows is not enough.
His shidi clings to him, gaze locked in his, you promised you could control it. Jiang Cheng had yelled at him as he had held Jiang Yanli a few moments ago. Even in those moments he had never doubted Wei Wuxian could make things right.
"It's going to be alright, Jiang Cheng. Don’t worry, we will get you a doctor. It's fine. It's alright." Wei Wuxian whispers, as the echoes of battle go quieter around him.
Jiang Yanli is whispering softly next to him as well, her words jumbled by her cries, her hands trying to cling to Jiang Cheng and her white robes now red with Jiang blood.
Wei Wuxian sees his brother fade, fear showing in his eyes until there is nothing. He is twenty-one, he has built Yunmeng back, and in a week he would have held the festival for the beginning of spring; he has new disciples he’d had liked to train, and he has a nephew he’d had wanted to see grow.
There were so many things he needed to do, wanted to do. Wei Wuxian knows this, he had thought that given enough time, he'd be able to visit Lotus Pier, to see Jiang Cheng, to help him. Maybe there would had been a small chance that they could become the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng after the war ends, and the dust settles.
All these things meant nothing in the end. They hadn't mattered that rainy afternoon when the Wen soldiers had found Wei Ying, they hadn’t mattered when Jiang Cheng had seen the blade descend on his shixiong.
The blood stops flowing, Jiang Cheng goes slack on Wei Wuxian's arms, it has been less than the time for a stick of incense to fall, it has been an eternity. The night going on and on in Wei Wuxian's mind, darkness clouding everything and everyone.
Jiang Cheng is gone. He is dead.
Wei Wuxian tries to feel for his breath, his pulse, checks his dantians and his core.
All that is left of his shidi is pale skin, cold hands and a river of blood going dry.
"Wei Ying," the voice of Lan zhan cuts in. And like that Wei Wuxian is thrown back to Nightless City, to the battle, to the smoke and the war.
You pay life for life, blood for blood. Wei Wuxian had come here for what the cultivation sects have done to the Wen remnants. Their spirits deserved retribution.
But this time, it is Wei Wuxian who needs blood. He looks around him, and it is not enough; annihilating the Jins and the Lans and the Nies would not be enough. The sun has no right to rise, the moon has no reason to shine.
The line has been crossed, and Wei Wuxian won't stop until the entire world crumbles for him.
He usually uses Chenqing to call upon him the resentful energy, this time he doesn’t need to; it comes for him, from him, clouds swirling around him growing in size and condensing, sucking the pale light that still shines, more and more. Until all that everyone can see is the shadows of yin energy consuming everything.
Let them come, all the ghosts and spirits, all the wronged ones, all those who seek revenge. Wei Wuxian would take them and let them descend upon the living.
Make them hurt, make them bleed, twist their limbs, pluck their eyes out; use their tongues to choke them and make their minds be consumed with grief like ours. He commands the energy.
He rises from the floor, still holding onto Jiang Cheng’s body. He won’t let go, he had tried to live in peace, tried to do the right thing without disrupting the sects too much. He had given his dreams away, his sister, his golden core, he had given and given and the world had taken everything and more.
He said he would bring justice and protect the innocent and that had left him with empty hands and a lifeless corpse. He had tried it the good way and this is how destiny had repaid him.
He had brought Wen Ning back, because he didn’t deserve the death he was given; because he had seen Wen Qing and had seen his reflection in her eyes, her pain had been his at losing the thing that made life worth living.
He could do the same now, he would do it. He was the Yilling Laozu and this time he would bring his shidi back and won't let anyone or anything pull them apart.