Dark Knight | WangXian Novel

36: Purple Ribbon

Purple ribbon?

Lan Wangji knelt down at the table and swept the shards of porcelain with his hand towards the table. He picked up the ribbon lying on the floor. It had been shredded at the edges by the shattered porcelain and was soaked with tea. And by the length and feel of it, one could easily sense it was a hair ribbon. It reminded him of Wei Ying's scarlet hair ribbon.

But a brilliant violet one?

His eyes swelled when he recalled one day at school, two years ago. Nie Huaisang had run around the same ring of pillars quite a few times, and Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin had chased after him in opposite directions. Both brothers crashed into each other at one point and saw that Huaisang had led them in such a way that both their hair ribbons would be entangled around the pillars.

Wei Ying's was scarlet.

Jiang Cheng's was violet.

Lan Zhan gasped silently. What was Jiang Wanyin's hair ribbon doing here? Did he do something to Lan Xichen?

No. He would never. Even Lan Zhan knew that.

Rubbing his head, Lan Zhan stood up. Xiongzhang... drinking tea... Jiang Wanyin's ribbon in his hand... the teacup crashed... something happened to him.

The worst part was... the tea was quite an hour or two old...

Lan Zhan instinctively ran out of the Hanshi and hurried down the paths winding through Cloud Recesses. He looked around the main halls, the Sect Leader's office, the dining hall, the conference hall, but Lan Xichen was nowhere to be found.

Should I report to Shufu? Maybe xiongzhang went somewhere? Pondering, he walked up to the Grandmaster's office.

Which was also empty.

Lan Zhan frowned. Nobody was here? Shufu's special perfume was not around, meaning he had left quite a few hours ago, too. Shufu and xiongzhang left together?

Or maybe...

Suddenly, Lan Wangji realised what was going on. A thousand things buzzed around in his head as he ran away from the houses and the offices...

"Could you keep an eye on your brother? Something tells me he's not safe."

Away...

"He seems weak."

Further away...

Shufu...He was angry enough with me marrying...a man.

Far from the compound...

Xiongzhang had to save me from being whipped.

Into the distance...

Purple ribbon.

Right up to the doorsteps of the Discipline Hall, crashing headfirst into a hard wall.

Lan Zhan waved his hand. A silencing charm and a barrier. Nobody could come in, nobody could leave, not a soul would hear a sound. Heart throbbing in his chest, he clenched his left fist, summoned as much of his cyan Divergent energy as he could, and punched the barrier.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

CRASH!

He slammed the doors open and ran into the hall to find his brother kneeling on the floor and uncle raising his hand. A long, thin strip of leather extended from his fist, raised and poised, ready to come crashing down on the great Chief Cultivator.