Jiang Yanli stared down at her hands. Zidian on her hand, an amethyst ring that felt alien against her skin. A rhythmic tapping on the outside of Jiang Yanli's tent drew her attention. Jiang Yanli forced her hands to settle motionlessly on her lap. A few deep breaths to try and brace herself for what was probably yet another conversation she did not want to have. The tapping took on a strange rhythmic tempo, like the steps to a dance and Jiang Yanli suddenly paused. There was only one person in the camp who would do something as silly and childish, as knocking to the rhythm of a cheerful tune.
"Enter." Jiang Yanli called. The tent flap fluttered open and then closed behind Luo Qingyang. Jiang Yanli took a breath and forced a smile. Luo Qingyang raised a skeptical eyebrow at the expression, but for now didn't comment.
"You're back," Jiang Yanli intoned. She tried to sound happy. She was happy. However, there were a lot of other emotions clamouring inside her and her happiness was having a hard time expressing over the other noise.
"Mn. Just gave Sect Leader Nie the scouting report." Luo Qingyang said, letting herself almost flop into a seated position beside Jiang Yanli.
Luo Qingyang was perfectly capable of being an elegant young lady, but she would discard most of those behaviors in private like this. Jiang Yanli had learned, not long after the two of them became friends, that Luo Qingyang enjoyed the feeling of discarding decorous behavior. At least she enjoyed doing so in the safety of a private space with people she trusted. It seemed like a way of rebelling, a way to assert her love of freedom without creating problems that would inevitably arise were she to do so in public.
"So, I've been away for two weeks. What did I miss?" Luo Qingyang asked, looking at Jiang Yanli expectantly. Jiang Yanli looked down at her hands and touched the amethyst ring lightly.
"A-Cheng arrived." Jiang Yanli said quietly.
Luo Qingyang did not seem surprised, but Jiang Yanli did not really expect her to be. Jiang Wanyin's arrival in camp had been a big deal. He had been the official heir of the YunmengJiang sect, with their father's death the title of sect leader would naturally fall to him. Naturally. Without question. Except that he had been nowhere to be found for two months and Jiang Yanli had been assuming the responsibilities of leading the YunmengJiang cultivators and attending war meetings with the other allied sect leaders.
"Our parents' bodies are in Yiling. Wen Qing and Wen Ning smuggled A-Cheng, A-Xian, and Lan Wangji out of Lotus Pier, as well as the..." Jiang Yanli swallowed back the tears that wanted to gather. "A-Cheng buried them there." Luo Qingyang was silent, perhaps waiting for Jiang Yanli to say something more. When Jiang Yanli didn't Luo Qingyang's posture shifted.
"So where has he been?" Luo Qingyang kept her voice gentle, but there was a tiny spark of something protective in her voice. Something that might have been a faint echo of protective anger.
That was the question, wasn't it? Where had Jiang Wanyin been? The QishanWen sect had been very vocal about the deaths of her parents. Jiang Yanli had tried to hold on to hope, while quietly mourning them in private. Quietly because, while her parents were dead, Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian were both missing. YunmengJiang sect disciples had evacuated and slowly came back together in Gusu. Meanwhile Jiang Yanli was there, not her parents or her didi, just her.
She was the one who had evacuated them. She was the last one to leave via the evacuation route. She was the one who brought them back together in Gusu, and she was the one who agreed with the other sect leaders to go to war. The disciples in this camp had come following her, and when they were feeling scared and lost she was the one who gave them hope.
For two months she had been leading. She had been the one who needed to speak up during war meetings. She was the one who needed to be calm and unflinching, so the other sects would not look down on her and the sect she represented. She only knew Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin lived because of Lan Xichen.
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Backlash Part 1
FanfictionAt the moment of his death, Wei Wuxian is sent back in time. He wakes up in the Cold Spring of Cloud Recesses during the time when he was there to study. Traumatized and exhausted Wei Wuxian attempts to end his life, only to be stopped by Lan Wang...
