The meaning of protecting you with my life

Catching up

"Since Wei Wuxian had been captured by Wen Chao, we have never heard any news about him until just a few days before the attack on Unclean Realm. That was when Nie Huisang came and told us he had heard rumours about Wei Wuxian having fallen into the Burial Mounds, or how he put it, actually throwing himself inside. So me and Lan Wangji went to look for him.

At first, we could not find him as we were wandering around the place, we could not even come close to the barrier with how thick it was with the resentful energy. And then, just like that, we have bumped into Wei Wuxian in Yiling. He was wandering the street market as if nothing has ever happened, as if he had not been lost for three whole months. But he looked somewhat different at that time, jumpier and very closed off.

We went to talk in an inn and can you believe that? He had argued with Lan Wangji – I have never seen him like that before, in Cloud Recesses, he always used to run around the Second Jade as a puppy wanting to get petted – and completely ignored him saying that he would come back to Yunmeng with me. And of course he would, why would Lan Wangji even ask him to go to Cloud Recesses with him? And in the middle of the war too...

Wei Wuxian have changed, somehow it was him and at the same time not. He seemed really on his guard for some reason, and he had this peculiar black flute with him. I had already known that he would not have his sword, he had been captured before Suibian had been retrieved, but still... And I did not even know at that time that he turned to cultivation of resentful energy instead of continuing the path of the sword. He was wary of everything and he did not really talk all that much, I still did not confirm until today if he had really been in the Burial Mounds or somewhere else entirely those three months.

Anyway, Wei Wuxian came back with us to the camp and then we have learned that Sister had been captured by Wen Xu. I wanted to go rescue you, but he held me back. And he was right, if I stormed off there and then, I would have been captured even earlier and perhaps I would have never met you again.

He stayed by my side this whole time. And let me tell you, his demonic cultivation is something else. When you stand just next to him while he is controlling the resentful energy and his army of fierce corpses, it is as if all air is chilly and all the hair on your body is standing up. Do not get me wrong, I am definitely not scared of my brother, but somehow, I feel like he has become distant... Still, he pushed onwards, insisting on being on every battlefield. Be it not for his help, the allied forces would have never advanced this much. They are now practically in front of the gates of Nightless City.

But I am worried about him too, he often looks tired and refuses to talk about it. Well, actually about everything that happened to him. I cannot remember the last time I saw him smile earnestly... I really do not know what to think anymore these past few days...

And then, right in the middle of the most difficult battle, we somehow got separated for a minute. I was surrounded by Wen Ruohan's puppets and a horde of Qishan Wen sect soldiers and completely overpowered. I have lost my sword and the last thing I remember was someone hitting me on the back of my head. Afterwards, I have woken up here."

Jiang Yanli was listening to her brother's explanation of the last events she had missed and her body was becoming colder and colder with every single word. It was really heart-breaking to hear how Wei Wuxian had changed, how both of them had. She had known fully well that they would be broken by her disappearance but this was too much. Even if Jiang Cheng had not said it in many words, she could tell that he and Wei Wuxian had been desperately looking for her, probably disregarding their own health and well-being in order to reach Nightless City as soon as possible.

Although the light in the cell was very dim, she still saw how exhausted and devastated Jiang Cheng had been when he had been brought in. The bone deep tiredness which had etched itself into his every feature could only be explained by overexerting himself and by feeling extreme grief. He must have surely assumed they had all been long dead and he would at best retrieve their mutilated bodies. She had also been shocked when she had met her parents who were still alive even after all this time. She could tell the captivity had changed them as well, none of them was the same person who they knew before the attack on Lotus Pier.

And she was sure that the same could be said for Wei Wuxian as well. Even before being captured, her brother had already been acting differently. As always, he was taking all the blame onto himself and put himself in the role of her and her brother's guardian and protector, but something just did not feel the same as before. As if the whole world came crushing down onto his very shoulders.

Before meeting her parents again, she had disregarded this fact and assumed that Wei Wuxian had just been shaken by the attack on Lotus Pier, his new home, and by losing half of his second family. Now however, she was suspecting that there had been something more to Wei Wuxian's obsession with protecting them. It was most probably as her mother had said, he had taken her words to his heard, following them to the letter.

It was very sad when she realized this, if this really was the case, then Wei Wuxian must have truly felt like he had been expendable. Could it be that he had even believed that he had been taken into the Yunmeng Jiang sect and into their family so he would be their life-long servant and protector? Jiang Yanli wanted so much to tell herself that this was nonsense, that Wei Wuxian knew fully well he had been their brother all along and had nothing to pay back to her family, but she simply could not. Deep down, she knew it was the truth. Perhaps not the whole one but at least a part of it for sure.

She flinched a bit when the dead silence was interrupted by her mother asking in a shaking voice: "So, all this time, you believed we were dead? How did A-Ying take the news? I know he never liked me very much but I am afraid that he would have still blamed himself. And of course he would when I was the one to put all the blame on him first..."

Yu Ziyuan sounded so broken and sorry that Jiang Yanli searched for her hand and took it into her own. She had been here long enough to understand that her mother had finally seen what she had done to Wei Wuxian, what her words and shouting had done. And she also knew that Yu Ziyuan was now greatly regretting it. Whatever happened during the long imprisonment had made her act more like a mother.

Jiang Yanli could now only hope that her mother would be able to apologize to Wei Wuxian eventually, that was, if they would ever meet again. Their fate was more than uncertain and Wei Wuxian's as well it would seem with the war still going on and him surely trying to rescue them all on his own right now. She wanted so much to go to him and tell him to not risk himself, to take better care of himself and to not forget that he was also an important member of their family. Wei Wuxian was no servant of theirs, he was her and Jiang Cheng's brother, and if he was to get hurt, or even killed, their family would never be whole again.

She wanted to believe that he knew all of this, but she just could not. It was not in his nature, not when he always tried to take everything upon himself and always put everyone else's well-being before his own. She feared for his life now for she knew he would do something reckless and try to get Jiang Cheng – and in extension all of them since he probably did not know they were even alive in the first place – out of here.

All she could do now was pray that someone would stop him before he would destroy himself for their sake, both in the literal and figurative sense of the word.