Backlash Part 1

Chapter 36: The Meeting Resumed

Wen Qing was still seething as they made their way across the Cloud Recesses. If she were a bit calmer she wouldn't have grabbed Lan Xichen's arm like that. She had heard what he said to Jiang Fengmian.

'It is no trouble for us to look after Wuxian. He and Wangji are in love, and we will look after Wuxian as we would any other member of our family.' He'd addressed Wei Wuxian the same way he addressed Lan Wangji. Prior to this she only ever heard him refer to Wei Wuxian as Wei-gongzi. It was a surprising move from Lan Xichen. Wen Qing still thought of him as that Sect leader who quietly protested but then just went along with what the louder voices said. It wasn't that she thought he agreed with the horrors people suggested. She recalled the look on his face at her execution after all. His expression had been pained.

It just seemed he was either too afraid of conflict or too unwilling to offend people, she really couldn't say which. His entirely too polite protests immediately quieted the second anyone became upset at his suggestions. She couldn't say he always responded that way. During and after the war her encounters with him were almost non-existent. Maybe it was selfish of her, but she felt like protesting that it was inhumane to burn someone alive was a rather clear cut example of a righteous versus cruel decision.

She was expecting to die, and really she expected the death to be brutal. She had little to no faith in the righteousness of the cultivation world, but that day had truly crushed what little faith she had left. Of those there, only one person had to be physically held back from interceding. Lan Wangji had reminded her a lot of Wei Wuxian in that moment. Unwilling to listen to the decision that he could not tolerate the injustice of. She was glad he was held back. Him physically intervening would not have changed her fate. Only an actual sect taking a stand might have been able to change her sentence.

Lan Xichen had protested the cruelty, but almost immediately he was met by cries of those asking if the Wen's had shown any mercy.  Jin Guanyao, the hypocrite who actually had innocent blood on his hands from the war, had oh so apologetically and rationally explained the justified need for vengeance. With pained eyes Lan Xichen didn't protest anymore. Lan Xichen watched as she burned. That was something she would give him credit for.

Despite supporting her brutal execution method, most of the cultivators did not actually watch her die. Once the fire began to blaze they averted their eyes. Most of the cultivators were cowards. They demanded a brutal execution, but couldn't even watch the fate they had subjected her to. Most of the eyes that actually continued to watch her were filled with anger, resentment, or emotions more sickening than she cared to recall. Lan Xichen was one of the few people who condemned her to death, felt her death too cruel, but still watched. He had not ignored the consequences of what he had allowed. She respected him for that.

Lan Xichen's words to Jiang Fengmian had been a firm and somewhat presumptuous statement. He had basically declared Wei Wuxian as a member of their family already, without the betrothal agreed to. Granted there was no good reason to turn down the betrothal offer, but that didn't mean it would go smoothly. Jiang Fengmian was clearly resistant to the idea or he would have already agreed to it. Wen Qing could feel her temper rising inside her. She took a slow breath to maintain as calm of an outward appearance as possible. She could not imagine how she was going to handle Wei Wuxian's insistence on saving Lotus Pier.

The more she learned about his so-called family from there, the more she hated them. Hated how they treated her didi. Hated how accepting he was of their treatment, like it was normal. It made her so angry. They had her didi first. They had him there since he was so young. They had every chance to be his family. Her didi, her family, was everything to Wen Qing. Every decision she ever made was always about them. Wei Wuxian was part of that family. He came later, but was no less valuable. The thought that anyone had the chance to be family with her didi and did not treat that chance like the invaluable treasure it was, infuriated her.