Backlash Part 1

Chapter 177: Explaining The Yin Hufu

Wei Wuxian rose to a sitting position then seated himself in Lan Wangji's lap. It didn't feel right to talk about this while laying down, but he desperately wanted the reassurance of Lan Wangji's presence. Lan Wangji's arms wrapped around Wei Wuxian. The self-consciousness he had felt while positioning himself disappeared under the feeling of the warm secure weight wrapped around his body.

It didn't really make sense for him to be nervous about climbing into Lan Wangji's lap. He did it all the time, and Lan Wangji had never rejected it. Sometimes Lan Wangji even pulled Wei Wuxian into his lap himself. Rationally Wei Wuxian understood that he had no reason to feel nervous or ashamed about climbing into Lan Wangji's lap.

Wei Wuxian began fiddling with the tea cup in front of him. It was just the situation that was making him more nervous and self-conscious. Wei Wuxian was afraid to explain himself. That's what this conversation was. It was a request to explain himself. Wei Wuxian did not like explaining himself. It felt vulnerable. It felt like the first step before something terrible happened.

Wei Wuxian took a few slow breaths. He did it quietly, making the gesture more subtle. He felt compelled to try and conceal just how distressed he was, although a tiny voice in the back of his head noted that it was probably a wasted effort. He was in Lan Wangji's arms sitting across from his Shijie. He wasn't likely to be fooling either of them.

Wei Wuxian repeated the quiet deep breaths two more times to try and calm himself down. He should explain himself. It was something he could do. In theory. It was supposed to be something that would allow people to understand what he did and why. That was supposed to be something that changed opinions, created understanding, and gained support. It was just not how things usually went for Wei Wuxian when he tried to do it.

Wei Wuxian had learned early that trying to explain himself was not helpful. It was met with ridicule, judgment, rejection, and scorn. At best it did nothing. He was still punished. He was still scolded and shamed. It had long since been ingrained deep into his bones that explaining himself was a useless and wasted effort. That was why he had so often scoffed at demands that he explain himself. In his mind it had been a fact that to do so was a wasted effort.

Over time it became more than that though. Slowly instances piled up where his efforts to explain himself seemed to make things worse. People became even angry. Accusations became sharper. By the time he died explaining himself was worse than useless. Explaining himself was dangerous. Explaining himself hurt.

Wei Wuxian repeated the deep breaths, counting slowly in his head. It was one of the many things he was trying to get over. Sometimes explaining himself was useless, he had not been entirely wrong about that, but it was a chance to create understanding. That was a good thing, a rare thing, but it was hard to get without working towards it. Wei Wuxian couldn't bring himself to explain himself to most people, but Shijie wasn't 'most people'.

"The Yin Hufu draws in and stores large amounts of resentful energy. I can control a greater number of fierce corpses with it than I can without it. The corpses submit easily to the Yin Hufu. As long as I can control the orders that the Yin Hufu is giving out, then I can control..." Wei Wuxian paused. "Well, I'm not really sure what the limit is on the number of fierce corpses I could control. A lot more than I can do without it in any case."

Wei Wuxian's voice was quiet, not quite the chipper casual tone he usually preferred to wrap things in. He still kept his tone as dismissive as he could. Trying to sound like nothing about this was worth consideration. That part of him that felt like if he pretended he wasn't worried right now then it wouldn't hurt if he was scorned, demanded he try and protect himself. Getting himself to say the words was already taking a great deal of effort.