Fate

Ch. 20

Wei Wuxian pulled Wangji into a hug the moment he was back in the room. Lan Xichen hasn't woken up yet but A'Yuan has. Little A'Yuan was delighted to see his Xian-GeGe again.

"Rich-Gege?!" A'Yuan called out.

Wangji smiled slightly and sat beside him on the bed, "hello A'Yuan, how are you feeling?"

"Okay," A'Yuan replied.

"Do you remember what happened?" Wangji asked him.

"I was with rich uncle, and he was with another older uncle, he was called Shufu. They were arguing. A lot of other people were arguing. People were angry that I was a Wen and Rich Uncle defended me. A purple uncle was then and he was so angry he had a purple whip and tried to hurt me. He hit rich uncle instead. A fight broke out and rich uncle took me away. He ran with me until we were cornered by a cliff. He had his sword so he just jumped. Next thing we know we are here," A'Yuan explained.

Wangji and Wuxian let out a sigh. Wuxian looked at Yibo, "can you help me flip him over, he might have an injury on his back?"

Yibo nodded and carefully rolled him over. Wuxian immediately knew the mark on Xichen's back, he looked at Wangji, "Zidian, Jiang Cheng was involved."

"Is this a whiplash or a burn?" Yibo asked, "I've never seen something like this before."

"You treat it like a burn but it is considered both," Wuxian explained, "it seems even though A'Yuan explained what he could, we won't get a clear answer until he comes around."

Wangji rubbed his temples as if he was stressed, "so a war broke out in Cloud Recesses...so much for rules," Wangji said.

Wuxian giggled but then turned to stand beside him, "your brother just saved A'Yuan. They wanted to kill him. He is a child and they won't even spare him. It's bad enough they killed his elders."

"I know, my brother, being a sect leader, seems to have some morals left," Wangji said.

Wuxian patted his head and looked at Xichen's robes on the floor. Wuxian could feel a couple charms radiating from them, "you have charms on your robes right?" Wuxian asked.

"It's mostly to protect us from monsters and ghouls when we are night hunting. Also to prevent resentment from getting too close," Wangji said, "why?"

Wuxian knelt down and looked through Xichen's robes. He then saw a talisman sewn into one of them, "this doesn't look like a protection talisman," Wuxian said.

Wangji knelt beside him and looked at it, "I've never seen this before."

"Where do your robes usually come from?" Wuxian asked.

"Our fabrics are shipped from various sects, a lot of them come from Lanling since they have the best selections. We make our own once the fabrics are delivered. Are you saying this was something additional?" Wangji questioned.

"It has to be," Wuxian said, taking the talisman, "I need to look into this talisman but it's hard to do that without your library for texts and scriptures."

"You do not have anything on you?" Wangji asked.

"I can try with what I have," Wuxian said and pulled out a Qiankun pouch. Inside had scriptures that were written by Wuxian himself. He then sat down on the floor in a corner of the room to remain out of the way and looked into the talisman. After a couple hours Wuxian had some information.

"It seems like a mind altering talisman, but it has been altered in a way. It's something that makes people more agitated over time. If the talisman means anything, it has a focus on something that people are supposed to dislike and it will alter their minds throughout time the longer they wear it. Since it was sewn into robes, it's easy to hide it...so someone is deliberately trying to make things worse, causing wars and sect fallouts. Why else would a place like Gusu Lan be so easily swayed to disregard the rules and start fighting within the boundaries of the sect itself as it is forbidden," Wuxian explained.

"What if it was targeted towards Wens and you specifically; maybe even Resentment?" Wangji questioned.

"I mean it is possible, from what A'Yuan said, the arguments started with him because he was a Wen. Zewu Jun protected him though so he was not targeting Wens, but others were. So maybe the person was targeting certain people?" Wuxian wonders out loud.

"Why was there a war to begin with again?" Xiao Zhan asked.

"Well before everything with me started, it started with the Wen Sect and they wanted control over a tool called the Yin Iron. It is a special type of metal that absorbs unusual amounts of resentment under the direction of Xue Chonghai several hundred years ago...from our timeline. After defeating Xue Chonghai, the Five Great Clans divided the Yin Metal into four pieces and hid them among places of benevolent energy. Lan Yi, an ancestor of Lan Zhan's family, later sought out a piece in the hopes of innovating the Gusu Lan Clan. Finding herself unable to control it, she sealed herself and the Yin Metal in a cave in the back of the Cloud Recesses for hundreds of years.

Another piece of Yin Metal was stored in the Heavenly Maiden of Dafan Mountain, resulting in the statue's soul-stealing abilities. Upon finding the piece of Yin Metal that stole the soul of Wen Qing's branch family, Wen Ruohan, leader of the Wen Clan began to search for all four pieces of Yin Metal to grow his abilities in Demonic Cultivation," Wuxian explained, "Lan Zhan and I spent a lot of time looking for them only to be too late each time. A war broke out and was named the Sunshot Campaign.

The Wen Sect was one of five sects and Wen Ruohan was known as Chief Cultivator so he already had a lot of power. I guess he wanted more so he started to dabble in demonic energy. I was not the same, I used it for good, he used it for malicious purposes. I only killed those who were Wen Soldiers and those who hurt and betrayed my family otherwise I never once would hurt anyone."

"Well," Xiao Zhan said, "maybe we should write everything down into a timeline and try to figure out where everything went wrong and maybe even find out what others might have been doing then. You are not in your world, obviously, so this isn't your doing. So the hatred going around is caused for some other reason. With the perspective of Xichen, we might have a different opinion. He might have information we are missing."

"Until he is better, should I hold off the rest of my storytelling?" Wuxian asked.

"I think so, in the meantime we can write down everything first. Yibo's brother will be here shortly with some clothes for Xichen," Zhan said.

"He might be confused by his own doppelgänger," Wuxian said.

Yibo laughed, "let him."