Backlash Part 2

Chapter 226: To Ask and To Speak

Wei Qing had barely slept in the last week. It was difficult to rest with Wei Wuxian and Nuan-er missing. Each day that passed with them still missing chipped away at the hope that they would be found. It fed the ever swelling ocean of frustration and shame in Wei Qing's heart.

All Wei Qing wanted from this strange second chance was to save her family. She knew this wouldn't be an easy task, and she knew she wouldn't save all of them. The war ended. They moved to Cloud Recesses, not as prisoners. Everyday Wei Qing held her breath waiting for everything to fall apart. She was waiting for the cruelty and ostracization.

After a week of watching the GusuLan sect accept her family, Wei Qing felt an overwhelming sense of relief. It finally sunk in that they were truly going to be welcome in the Cloud Recesses. They were not prisoners. She was not going to wake up one day to find half of her family being forcefully shipped to another location. There were so many more children now. Children who wouldn't die in labour camps. Children like Nuan-er, who never had a chance to grow up, now had a future.

Watching Wei Wuxian accept not just A-Yuan back into his life, but make space for Nuan-er as well, had filled Wei Qing with painful joy. Wei Qing's long practised composure was all that kept her from openly weeping and needlessly worrying all the people she loved. So much in her last life had been lost. So many people had died before she finally found, in her desperation, one person who would help.

Wei Wuxian had hardly known her at the time. They interacted very little as students, and the short time she had hid them in Yiling was hardly enough time to develop anything resembling a friendship. Of course, during that short time, Wei Wuxian had kowtowed at her feet and begged her to cut the golden core from his body and place it into Jiang Wanyin.

Wei Qing wasn't certain what would have happened in that future if she had refused. She often looked back on that two day surgery with deep regret. Two days, soaking her hands in the blood of the most righteous man she had ever met. Soaking her hands in the blood of a boy who had never held back from helping, no matter how much it would cost him.

Both of her brothers were so alike in that way; frustratingly, painfully, stupidly, kind. Wei Wuxian ripping out his golden core for his shidi. Wei Qionglin, standing up to Jin Zixun to protect others from being bait, only to be stabbed in the chest with a lure flag and left to die. Wei Wuxian risked the ire of the cultivation world to protect the scraps of a family that carried the name of the people that had destroyed the only home he had known. Wei Qionglin risked his life and the lives of their family by defying Wen Rouhan. He drugged guards and rescued fugitives. Wei Qionglin provided medical care to Wen Rouhan's enemies with absolutely no guarantee that he wouldn't be caught.

Wei Qing wanted to protect her family, but she especially wanted to protect her stupidly kind baby brothers. Wei Qing had failed at that in her first life. She could still feel the shape of that failure. Imprinted on her with the memory of flames scorching her flesh and smoke burning her lungs.

Now, her da-di was missing. Her stupidly kind, self-sacrificing, oldest didi was missing and she hadn't found him. Wei Qing poured herself into organizing search parties and keeping the rest of her family together. Then she poured herself into digging through whatever she could find that might help them find him.

Wei Qing dug through whatever copies they had of Wei Wuxian's research, which frustratingly did not contain any notes about the jinbu he had made or the compass Wei Wuxian used to track them. Nor did she find any notes about the talisman she vaguely recalled Nuan-er showing her, while showing off the pile of talismans all marked with pictures or simple words that Wei Wuxian had given to Nuan-er.

Since Wei Wuxian thought it was a good idea to teach a young child how to activate talismans. Wei Qing thought it was a miracle that Nuan-er had so far taken it seriously when Wei Wuxian told her to only activate a talisman if she knew what it did. There had been a lot of talismans. Some of them frivolous, others were heartbreakingly practical to give to a little girl who had lived through her home being attacked by soldiers and her family killed.