Backlash Part 2

Chapter 232: Baifeng Mountain - Shattered

Returning to his body felt like falling into the Burial Mounds all over again. The swooping sensation and panic of careening towards the ground with nothing under his feet. Wei Wuxian swayed with the impact, barely managing to keep his feet under him. His head was filled with screaming. Fuck. What had Xue Yang been doing with his body? The resentful energy was so loud. Chaotic and inside him in a way that it only ever was when he was flooded by the torrent that was the Yin Hufu.

Wei Wuxian could barely think. Anger and pain and fear that was not his own, but felt like it was. Xue Yang had to have invited this inside. Inside in a way that Wei Wuxian never did, because he wanted to come out the other side of this still sane and with his golden core intact. Wei Wuxian hadn't had to work backwards like this since the Burial Mounds. When the resentful energy had flooded him before trying to control it had even been an option. Half of the work had been learning to manipulate the energy inside of him. Push it out if there was too much. Make what was there lay calmly alongside his meridians instead of shredding them.

Wei Wuxian only managed to dodge the sword coming at him because of long ingrained instincts. He hadn't had the chance to even take in his surroundings yet. He'd crashed into his body, nearly fallen on his ass, and landed in a flash flood of resentful energy that threatened to knock his feet out from under him and drag him under water. Wei Wuxian didn't even have the chance to think about what he was doing. Thinking would have taken too long. Thinking, with a sword closing in on you was how many cultivators had died in the war.

Wei Wuxian reacted. The movements long practised to defend himself. To make sure the person who attacked him wouldn't be able to do it again. It was only when Wei Wuxian was pulling Suibian free that he was able to even look to see who attacked him.

"A-Cheng!" Jiang Yanli's scream joined the frenzied chorus of the resentful energy in Wei Wuxian's head.

Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian felt sick. This... This wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Maybe he was hallucinating. Xue Yang had invited resentful energy into his body and core. Wei Wuxian could feel it ripping and tearing at him. Flood waters over sharp rocks. Splintered wood and metal stabbing and scraping and colliding with him as Wei Wuxian was dragged away by the current. Resentful energy could really mess you up if you didn't know what you were doing.

Wei Wuxian remembered what it was like when he didn't know what he was doing. It felt like this. Being dragged by waters too violent for even the best swimmers to evade. Knives in his veins ripping him apart from the inside out. Sharp vicious voices in his head. ScreamingScreamingScreaming. Reality twisting between the vengeful emotions of so many people until Wei Wuxian couldn't tell what he was seeing or experiencing anymore. How many times had he seen places and people in the Burial Mounds that could not be there?

Wei Wuxian continued to stare, eyes wide with disbelief, as Jiang Yanli took Jiang Cheng into her arms. He watched Jiang Yanli clasp Jiang Cheng's wrist, desperately feeling for his pulse. He watched her move one shaking blood soaked hand to hover just below Jiang Cheng's nose. She was trying to feel for his breath. Wei Wuxian stared unblinkingly, his own chest tight with desperation.

'Please please please.' Wei Wuxian repeated silently in his head. 'Please let him be okay. Please let this be a nightmare, a hallucination, anything if it means he's okay.'

Watching Jiang Yanli die had been one of the worst moments of Wei Wuxian's life. He had pushed through shock and grief when Lotus Pier was massacred. He had continued on through the numb sick feeling that had overtaken him when he saw Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan's bodies. Wei Wuxian had driven himself to the edge of desperation to find an answer when Jiang Cheng lost his golden core, and with it his will to live. Wei Wuxian screamed his way through having his golden core cut from his body. He clawed with bloody fingers to drag his broken body out of the Burial Mounds.