A Ghost of Snow

34. Two Truths and Many Lies

"Wei Wuxian! Are you stupid? What were you thinking?"

"Wen Qing.", Wei Wuxian mumbled weakly as she knelt in front of him trying to check on him.

"Lady Wen what's wrong with him?", Lan Wangji asked worried. But she just kept glaring at a certain sect leader while still prodding to check on Wei Wuxian. "If you don't let go now I am going to stick all hundred of my needles on your face.", she said now glaring at Wei Wuxian who was now only half-conscious in Lan Wangji's lap. When there still was no response, she sighed and changed tactics trying to coax the younger, "Just let me check once okay? I need to confirm something. Maybe I can help you, but we won't know if you don't let me. Be a good boy now. Will you?"

Wei Wuxian pursed his lips and looked at Lan Zhan with guilty eyes as he whispered, "I am sorry." Lan Wangji felt the resentful energy in Wei Ying's body dissipating slowly, now that it was out of the way, he could tell that there was in fact a lack of spiritual energy in his body, on inspecting further, where the golden core should have been, he was met with a void, he let go of Wei Wuxian's hand in horror and looked at Wen Qing for an explanation.

Jaing Wanyin silently watched as Lan Wangji's expression changed from his usual indifference to confusion? Fear? Horror? He couldn't tell. "Lan Zhan", he heard his senior call in a weak voice over and over but the Second Young Master Lan didn't respond and kept looking at the young healer with a questioning gaze. If it weren't for the fact that he was a Sect Leader and Lan Wangji was a Sect Heir of a prominent sect, he would have hit him and screamed at him to answer his brother.

Lan Wangji kept staring at Wen Qing as her face fell and she pulled her hand back to her side, his heart hammered against his chest, this look, it definitely couldn't mean anything good. He had always known Wen Qing to be confident and upright, much like himself, her face often held an expression of indifference but in that moment, all he saw was dejection, defeat and guilt?

She looked at him with a sympathetic gaze and whispered a small I am sorry before looking up and bowing to his Uncle, "Thank you for inviting me and having faith in me, Grandmaster Lan.", and then her expression turned grave again as her eyes turned to look at Wei Ying who kept repeating his name like a chant, "But I am afraid I'll have to let you down. Even if I know what the problem is, I can't help him."

"What do you mean?", this harsh voice belonged to the Sect Leader of the Yunmeng Jaing. "Sect Leader Jaing, if I were you I would keep my voice down. If not for you would it have come to this?", she glared at him. Something told Lan Wangji that she wasn't talking about the battle that had just taken place. For some reason he felt that she was a little more hostile towards the young Sect Leader Jaing than she was to others. "Whatever it is that you want to say, say it clearly. I don't have the time to be playing riddles with you guys neither do I have the patience.", Jaing Wanyin stared at her looking for answers. Lan Wangji wondered why it was that whatever came out of this young man's mouth had to sound like a taunt or a threat.

He deduced that from that point on anything that came out of any of their mouths would probably be the absolute truth with some high level insults mixed in to hurt each other's pride but whatever it was would be highly personal, he looked at his Uncle who had already dismissed the other disciples and nodded at him before setting up a ward around the training grounds to prevent anyone unrelated from overhearing or seeing anything that went down.

"Huh!", Wen Qing huffed, "Always so impatient, since you don't have the patience, let me waste a little more of your time then. Let's play a little game of questions and answers."

"You-", before he could complete his sentence, she cut him off again, "Wait a moment.", she calmly said as she sat on the ground and then gestured for him to continue. Never in his life could Lan Wangji have thought that he would get to witness Wen Qing being a savage.