They fly straight through the resentment energy coiling around the top of the Burial Mounds without any trouble, and at first, Lan Zhan thinks nothing of it. He lands just outside of the Demon Subduing Cave, and they stagger inside, stumbling over loose rocks and debris.
Lan Zhan escorts Wei Ying to his meagre bed, making him sit down on the sparse blanket, thread worn and faded. But it is all they could afford, and he wants to cry at how lifeless Wei Ying is, eyes closed and ever so pale, the dark shadows smudging under them making him appear gaunt and way too thin.
His Wei Ying deserves a throne of flowers, he thinks sadly, sitting by his feet. He must meditate again, and then he can think about helping Wei Ying recover.
But there's one thought that has been fighting its way to the forefront of his mind and it wins, a puzzle that can be solved now. As Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying's delicate wrist in one hand and searches for that vast and powerful golden core through his weak pulse, he's too shocked to register anything clear.
His mind refuses to acknowledge its absence, the gaping emptiness that remains barren where once it had the power to level a battlefield. That golden core, the one that helped him defeat the Tortoise of Slaughter, the beautiful ball of pulsing light that accepted help back then, is gone.
What happened to Wei Ying?
Was this Wen Zhuliu's work? Is that what he and Wen Chao did to Wei Ying before they threw him here?
Lan Zhan is weeping before he knows it, huge sobs wracking his body and it feels like his heart is shattering again and again.
Every hateful conversation he and Wei Ying shared comes back to him, each one a slap to his own face. The unintentional cruelty of his own words coming back to hurt himself a hundredfold.
"Cultivating this crooked path leads to harm, both to your body and mind!"
"Wei Ying, where is your sword?"
"Wei Ying, stop this! Return to the righteous path!"
How could he, Lan Zhan, zhiji to Wei Ying, have given up on him so badly? How could he have failed Wei Ying like this? He should have known that something was wrong. He should have realised that someone who loved to spar as much as Wei Ying did, who loved to compete with him, claiming to have met his match in Lan Zhan, would never have given up orthodox Cultivation without good reason.
He should have known.
Lan Zhan mourns the loss of something so precious, something Wei Ying had worked hard in his own way to have, a golden core that was more powerful in comparison than what most of the existing cultivators had now.
A hand lands on his head, gentle and soothing, patting him softly.
Wei Ying is still out of it, but it's as if his action is natural, wanting to comfort Lan Zhan without knowing why.
"Rest, Xingan," Lan Zhan whispers, wiping his face on his sleeve. He tries to pull himself together, but this grief is like quicksand, pulling him in and making him helpless in the face of it.
How must Wei Ying have felt then, when it happened to him? How it must have hurt to have such a vital piece of him scorched away into nothing but ashes, vapours and a lasting memory of a glorious thing!
Wei Ying shivers then, pulling Lan Zhan out of his misery.
He looks around for something to cover Wei Ying with, and finding nothing at all, he takes off his outer robes and drapes it over his beloved.
In a neat pile on another stone ledge, Lan Zhan finds dark blue robes. These were the ones Wei Ying had worn on that dark night, in the rain, when he had declared that he would rather die by Lan Zhan's hand than any other Cultivator.
Lan Zhan chokes back tears at the memory. Feeling naked in just his inner robes, he decides to put these on. They still smell like his Wei Ying, the faintest traces of lotus flowers, and an earthy musk making Lan Zhan feel braver.
Papers are strewn all over the cave, in a haphazard manner, and when Lan Zhan takes a closer look, he realises Wei Ying has made several breakthroughs in amazing discoveries, all of which should never, ever reach the hands of those bloodthirsty idiots that call themselves righteous. The hypocritical masses ready to follow unworthy, greedy and weak cultivators just because their voices were louder, backed by the stolen wealth of the people they had killed in the name of justice.
It was so wrong.
But then, a crudely drawn array catches his eyes as he is about to tuck all of these papers into his qiankun pouch.
It is...is it really a way to go back in time?
Instead of meditating, Lan Zhan begins to study this torn parchment, and it starts to make sense to him. He finds the characters for memory loss and changes that one in his head, and he figures out a daring plan.
What if he can save Wei Ying from all of this heartbreak?
The tipping point for him was Jiang YanLi's self-sacrifice, because no matter what Jiang Cheng wanted to believe, their elder sister had made the decision to push Wei Ying out of the way. That singular action cemented in Lan Zhan's mind who was the better of the Jiang Siblings, even while he wished she had not passed away. Wei Ying loved her so much. She did not deserve to die like that.
But really, her death feels like just the tip of an iceberg.
Lan Zhan has been thinking hard about the coincidence of both Jin ZiXuan and Jin ZiXun being at Qiongqi Way together, at exactly the same time? Both the heir of the Jin clan, and the second heir.
Jin GuangShan was publicly upset, but Jin GuangYao? He was definitely shady. Hiding behind those dimples and pretending to do the right thing. But Lan Zhan had no proof, and it was forbidden to gossip, even if Lan Zhan detested him for implying untruths about Wei Ying, back when Wei Ying returned to the Jin banquet and demanded to know where the Wen Remnants were being kept.
All Jin GuangYao had to do was get rid of his lecherous disaster of a father, and he would be sitting on the most powerful seat of the Cultivation World. But then, following this line of thinking, it means that Jin Rulan, Jin Ling, Wei Ying's barely one month old nephew is in grave danger.
That lying rotten cabbage just had to find an excuse, such as a night hunt gone wrong, and that would secure his place for the foreseeable future. With Jiang YanLi conveniently dead, there was no one left to protect her child.
So by planning this carefully enough, and retaining his own memories, it might be possible for Lan Zhan to go back in time and save Wei Ying from being thrown into the Burial Mounds. That's the start of his troubles.
But, as Lan Zhan thinks even more deeply about this, he realises that even more can be saved. There's no way to predict where he will end up in the past, but it would be great if he could save Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren from their last night hunt. His own mother comes to mind, and Lan Zhan allows himself to cry for her as well.
So many people have died needlessly, when the death of a few would save even more lives.
What if Wen Ruohan was taken out? What if he was rendered moot and obsolete so that he couldn't become power crazy, and the instigator of a war that would end up costing thousands of lives? Wasn't it better to take him out of the picture altogether?
As Lan Zhan ponders on this new discovery, it begins to appeal to him more and more. This array is the key to making everything better. All he has to do is follow the instructions to the letter, copy this circular map onto the ground and change a few characters.
Plan made, Lan Zhan stands up and finds his posture stiff from staying in one place far too long. But he likes this new colour of his robes, such a difference from what he's used to wearing.
However, while he has been consumed by the possibilities suddenly opening up to him, and lost all track of time; he can now hear distant shouting from outside.
It is too late.
The clans are here.
