Who You Are Book 2

Chapter 11 - Empathy (Part Eleven)

After a while of silence, he walked to Xiao XingChen's motionless corpse. He looked down with bloodshot eyes, the twisted curvature of his lips gradually sinking. Wei Wuxian didn't know if he had accidentally saw wrong, but it seemed that the rim of Xue Yang's eyes were brimming a reddish tint.

Immediately afterward, he glowered through clenched teeth, "You forced me to do this!" He then laughed grimly, and spoke to himself, "A dead one is better! Only dead people listen."

Xue Yang felt for Xiao XingChen's breathing and squeezed his wrist, as though he thought that he wasn't dead enough, that he wasn't rigid enough. He stood up, went into the bedroom on the side, and carried out a basin of water. Using a clean towel, he wiped away all of the blood on Xiao XingChen's face. He even exchanged the old bandages with new ones, carefully wrapping them around him.

He painted an array on the ground, prepared the materials needed, and properly placed Xiao XingChen inside. He only remembered to look after his own abdominal wound after he had done so many things.

Probably thinking that the two of them would be able to meet after just a short while, his mood grew better and better. He picked up all of the fruits and vegetables that had been scattered on the ground and organized them into the basket again. Out of a rare surge of diligence, he even cleaned the house and placed a new layer of straws into A-Qing's coffin. At last, he took out the piece of candy that Xiao XingChen gave him last night.

Just as he was about to put it in his mouth, he thought for a bit. Holding the urge back, he put it back again. With one hand holding his chin out of boredom, he waited for Xiao XingChen to sit up.

But it never happened.

The sky had been darkening, and so had Xue Yang's expression. He tapped his fingers irritatedly on the table.

When dusk fell completely, he kicked the table and cursed. Standing up, he half-kneeled in front of Xiao XingChen's corpse, checking over the array and incantations that he had painted. After repeated examinations, he felt that there was nothing wrong. However, after frowning for a moment, he still wiped away all of them and redrew the entire thing.

This time, Xue Yang directly sat on the ground, staring patiently at Xiao XingChen. He waited for another while. A-Qing's legs had already went through three stages of numbness. Now, they both itched and hurt, as though thousands of ants were nibbling on them. Her eyes had been swollen as well from crying. Her sight was a bit blurry.

After another two hours, Xue Yang finally discovered that the situation had gotten out of control.

He put his hand onto Xiao XingChen's forehead, closing his eyes for detection. A moment later, his eyes flew open.

Wei Wuxian knew. What he could still detect was probably just a few strands of a fragmented soul. A soul that was broken in such a way that it could never be used to create a fierce corpse.

...

"Xue Yang makes no sense at all," Jingyi said, "with such torture, what did he think was going to happen?"

"Obviously, he wasn't expecting me to turn the blade to myself," Xingchen said.

"Wait, I need to ask, his soul was too broken to bring him back...wasn't Baba's as well? How did he come back?" Lan Sizhui asked.

"His soul was rested long enough to piece back together enough to come back after being called by the sacrifice summon," Baoshan said.

"Indeed," Wuxian said, "I might have died by a suicide as well, but mine was slightly different as well. My body was never found, so how Mo Xuanyu got it, I have no clue."