Hui Gai had been wanting to talk to Wen Ning for a long time now.
Somehow, the opportunity never arose until now.
They teleported outside the little cottage where Wen Ning lived with Li Hua and their son.
Wen Ning bowed and was going to leave, but Hui Gai stopped him.
"Wait."
Wen Ning turned to look at this demon curiously, wondering what he could possibly want with him.
"How long have you known PengYou for?" Hui Gai asked him, uncertainly.
"Since he was fifteen years old." Wen Ning's face was open and without guile.
Hui Gai looked at the black cracks on his skin, snaking their way into his robes.
"Do they hurt?" He blurted out.
Wen Ning smiled at him.
"Not really. It used to hurt in the way people looked at me...but then because I had Master Wei...it didn't really matter any more. People have always been afraid of me." He wandered over to the wooden bench and sat down.
Hui Gai went over to sit next to him.
"What happened to you? If you don't mind telling me?"
"To be honest...I don't even know all of it." Wen Ning said, gently. "My sister and I came to study at Cloud Recesses as guests for the famous lectures. I knew she only brought me along to keep me safe, at the time Wen Rouhan was our leader and a very bad man. He made my sister do things she didn't want to do. He threatened our people and held them over her head any time it looked like she would go against what he wanted. So when we came here, I used to think my sister was attending the lectures but now that I think about it...maybe she wasn't.
"I met Young Master Wei one time while I was practising my archery. He came over to help me, and accidentally I let go of an arrow that would have hurt my sister as she suddenly appeared...but Master Wei threw a talisman at it and saved her. He was my first ever friend.
"People used to laugh at me all the time in those days. I had a stutter and no one had the patience to hear me out. But Master Wei...he was kind to me. He listened."
"PengYou has a lot of good qualities." Hui Gai agreed.
"Things were bad in the war that followed. Everything changed for us...and yet nothing did for our faction of the Wen family. First we seen as weak by Wen Rouhan and treated marginally well, as hostages to be valued only for what we brought to the Sect, and then later, hated by everyone simply for our surname. Nobody wanted to hear that we were innocent...except Master Wei who knew the truth.
"And then when they made work camps and began hurting us, Master Wei found me. I wasn't dead...but I wasn't alive completely either. He saved me." Wen Ning finished.
"I bet that was hard. For both of you." Hui Gai hadn't known anything about their relationship before, and to head it told so openly...was refreshing, if sad.
"It was a bad time for all of us." Wen Ning continued. "We were pariahs, nobody wanted anything to do with us, but Master Wei. He brought us to the only place he knew we would be safe, to the Burial Mounds. We learned to live again, we learned about kindness...and love. There was a little boy there...my cousin. You would know him as Lan SiZhui now. I think that little boy saved not only all of us, but even Hanguang-Jun."
Wen Ning looked out across his barren garden, frost glistening on the earth.
"There is nothing I would not do for Master Wei. I owe it to my sister who was burned alive for trying to cure people during that war. Blamed unfairly, but I do not wish her death to be in vain. I remember her every single day, how much she cared for all of us. My sister carried the burdens of our Sect upon her shoulders from such a young age, and it was only due to kindness and help we received from Young Master Wei that anything good came out of that time."
"Do you have any idea what is wrong with him?" Hui Gai asked at last.
It was nice and peaceful sitting here with Wen Ning.
He had a calm personality, a way of grounding a person.
"No. The only thing I could detect was that strange smell...you may even be able to smell it on me. He never had that before. And the sleeping too much...it is certainly strange. Perhaps there are others we can ask?" Wen Ning replied, sadly.
"His grandmother said she was going to come by." Hui Gai informed him. "She may have answers that we know nothing about. Whatever this ailment is, it is taking a lot out of him."
"I too do not wish to see him suffer any more. It isn't fair. Master Wei is the best, kindest, good person there is...and something like this shouldn't happen to him." Wen Ning clenched his fists in anger.
"If I could take away his pain...I would do it in a heartbeat." Hui Gai replied adamantly.
"Same goes for me."
A noise by their side had them both looking up.
Li Hua was standing there, holding the door open.
"It is late now." She said, pointedly.
Hui Gai couldn't argue with that.
YOU ARE READING
WangXian Forever Book 8
RomanceOne final challenge remains for Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian. They have been given the titles of Light Bearer of the North and his Dark Angel...but as yet they have no idea what this could mean. And Wei Ying is still suffering from a mysterious ailment...