Fate

Ch. 14

"After I transferred my core, I waited for Jiang Cheng at a nearby town, at a tea house. When I walked inside I immediately fell into Wen Chao's hands. He had his people there, I tried to leave but Wen Zhuliu knocked me back. Wen Chao had his men hold me down, beat me, torture me, and taunt me. They wanted information on where my brother was but I never gave them information. Wen Chao got angry and they flew me over the burial mounds, and pushed me in," Wuxian explained.

"What are the burial mounds?" Yibo asked.

"Throughout the mountain, skeletal remains poke up from the soil from the sheer number of bodies buried there. Allegedly it was said to be an old battlefield, the Burial Mounds is famed as a haven for walking corpses and vengeful ghosts. It resists the Qishan Wen Clan's purification attempts multiple times, until they are forced to close it off. Anyone who goes in, never comes out," Wuxian explained.

"But you got out?" Haikuan asked.

"It was not easy, I had so many broken bones, and I was in a lot of pain. I didn't know I hated the cold so much until I entered the mounds. The resentful energy is cold. When I used it, I felt cold, it felt like tiny ice shards cutting through my body. The mounds were cold. The resentful energy made my internal body feel cold, while the mounds made the rest of me cold. There was no food or clean water. I lived in that place for three months...if I did eat..." Wuxian immediately felt nauseous, "It was the rotting corpses."

"What?" Wangji asked.

"I didn't want to, but I had no choice. If I wanted to survive and get out alive...but it messed me up. I couldn't eat anything properly since. The river that cut through was contaminated in resentment but I still drank it to stay alive. While I was there, I learned a lot about how resentful energy works.

First it has a habit of making one hallucinate, I kept seeing things and even hearing voices. I kept hearing voices of people I knew, taunting me...a part of me gave up and didn't want to fight anymore and just die there...that was until I heard Lan Zhan's voice. I heard him say my name but it was enough to encourage me to fight.

I found black bamboo and made a Dizi or flute. I used it as a base for controlling resentful energy. Resentment reacts to emotions. I learned about the Lan Sect's music techniques during my studies there and learned to play the flute. It helped me connect to the resentful energy and control it. I then found the sword that was in Xuanwu. As I explained before, it was a yin shard piece. It was the strongest of the five and it connected them all. I used it to create Yin Hu Fu."

"Yin Hu Fu, what did it do, or what is it?" Haikuan asked.

"The Yin Hu Fu is made from two halves of mysterious metal. When activated by pressing the two halves together, all Fierce Corpses within a certain area come under the wielder's absolute control. It holds an immense amount of resentment and it can distribute it when asked. I found that it is bound by no one. It was far greater than what I intended. Unlike many spiritual weapons, which only respond to their owners, the Yin Hu Fu can be used by whomever grasps it; whether they are good or bad, friend or foe. Which is why I never gave in to handing it over to anyone and became an enemy for it," Wuxian explained.

"Wei Ying was the reason we won against the Wen Sect," Wangji says, "without his control over the corpses, we would have lost...maybe even more people would have died."

"I'm guessing after the war, Wuxian wasn't treated as expected," Zhan said.

"No, many people were so keen on me using my sword again. Since I had no golden core, using my sword would be pointless. I wouldn't have the energy to wield it. My sword specifically, had a spirit, and it would use a lot of energy just to unsheathe it," Wuxian explained.

"I was one of those people...I feel ashamed for making him feel cornered," Wangji said.

Wuxian sighed and turned to Wangji, "Lan Zhan, you eventually left that alone. You were still trying to help me. You spent hours learning new music scores just to try to help me. Though it would be no use to try as they wouldn't work on me but you still cared about me in a way no one else has...I pushed you away because I didn't want you to get mixed up with me. I had too much blood on my hands and I didn't have a sect to lean on anymore. I felt you would do so much better without me," he explained.

"You think my hands are clean?" Wangji asked, "when I found out you went missing, I was scared, angry, and I didn't want to think something bad happened to you. Jiang Wanyin and I went to the indoctrination site, there were Wen cultivators there. They were laughing and talking about how they tortured you. I used a guqin string to strangle one of them into talking. Asking them what they did to you and where you were. After Jiang Wanyin and I heard you were thrown into the mounds, we killed everyone there," Wangji said, "I tortured people into telling me what happened. I'm not as pristine as you may think. I didn't even ask my uncle for permission to find you. Xiongzhang let me go and said he'd talk to him. I have defied my uncle so many times that I even broke several of my family principles to get to you."

Wei Wuxian stared at Lan Wangji for a good minute trying to rack his brain around what Wangji just told him, he broke rules? Torture? But is torturing Wen cultivators not considered bad? What am I even talking about right now?

Wei Wuxian's mind was all over the place. His mind swarming with thoughts and emotions, but then it all went blank when he felt a pair of lips land on his own. It felt strange, the moment he let go and gave in to Wangji, he felt warmth spread through his body. He felt the pain from his surgery disappear. He could feel his spiritual essence feeding off of Lan Wangji's.

Wei Wuxian pulled away abruptly and looked at him, "what did you just do?" He asked breathlessly.

"What?" Wangji asked, "I just kissed you, that's all."

"No, you passed spiritual essence to me, how did you do that?" Wuxian asked and lifted up his shirt, his incision was healed and he looked at the others. Their eyes were wide with awe, "you saw something?"

"It-it was like...like something blue and bright.... But from Wangji to you," Haikuan said, "what was that?"

Lan Wangji's eyes widened, "Soul-Bonds," he said calmly, "one phase of dual cultivation?"

"Your theory about my golden core forming again?" Wuxian asked.

Wangji looked at the others, "we need more privacy for that."

Wei Wuxian looked at the others, "ugh, we can do it later," Wuxian said.

"I wish partners in our world can heal each other like that," Yibo said, "a part of me wished to see where you two came from."

Wuxian smiled, "if we figure out a way to go from one alternate reality to the other, maybe we can come and go as we please," Wuxian thought out loud, "but I would need to think about how we got here to begin with. When I fell from that cliff, I had destroyed the amulet already..I thought maybe it was some sort of backlash."

"Maybe it was but maybe someone from your timeline really wanted you gone," Zhan said.

"But who?" Wuxian asked.

"We need to hear the rest of your story before we might actually know. And for you to tell us about people from your world where you came from, we might be able to find out who is most suspicious," Haikuan said, "as I am a scientist, maybe we can go to my lab sometime and see what we can do from there."

"That might be something we can do," Yibo said, "with these two, they have these abilities that will help you."

"It will be a learning experience for all of us," Haikuan said.

"So am I just healed then?" Wuxian asked.

Yibo went over to Wuxian, "may I?" He asked. Wuxian nodded. Yibo gently checked Wuxian's incision and it was healed. It didn't hurt to the touch and everything that he fixed surgically was healed properly, "all of it seems fine. How do you feel?" Yibo asked.

"I feel fine," Wuxian said, "the pain is completely gone."

"You're welcome," Wangji said.

"You need to meditate now as you sent me energy," Wuxian demanded.

"I will," he said.