A Way to Heal

Part 67

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Wei WuXian's injuries weren't too heavy to begin with. He just didn't apply medicine in time and suffered from both fatigue and hunger. But the physique of his body was quite good. After medicine had been applied to the brand mark on his chest, his fever soon died down. He was lively again with just a few days of rest. After the chaos of the Xuanwu of Slaughter in Dusk-Creek Mountain, the 'Sector of Indoctrination' that the Wen Sect had set up at Qishan had disintegrated completely. All of the disciples returned to their sects. On the other hand, Wen Chao didn't follow up immediately either. Taking the opportunity, Madam Yu gave Wei WuXian a harsh talking-to and ordered him not to take one step out of the gates of Lotus Pier, not even to play in the lake. Thus, he could only shoot kites with the Jiang Sect's disciples, day after day after day.

No matter how fun a game was, playing it every day would eventually become tedious. And so, about half a month later, the boys' interest dwindled. Wei WuXian hadn't been in the mood, either. He shot without any care and even let Jiang Cheng get first place a couple of times.

"Ask her to stop it, A-Xian", he heard YanLi's desperate plea . He looked at her with confusion written on his face.

"Ask her to stop it", she said again. "Don't you know what she is going to show next?"

Of course he knew. But he also knew that the control was not in his hands. "Why?"

"Look at him", she said pointing to her younger brother. Sect leader Jiang was sitting there chatting with Lan XiChen. "He won't survive this"

"I know Shijie", Wei WuXian said looking at his Shidi who was busying himself in god knows what conversation with XiChen. "But he is stronger than we thought he is ", he reminded her. "And he has proved it over these years"

"But", Sensing the hesitance in her half-faded voice he let out his helplessness. "More than anyone, Shijie, I'm sure you know why we are here. I wanted this. But now I'm not in control of anything happening here. If I could, I would have never let anyone go through the same pain again. What I wanted was to go back and change.. Not ..not like this". He covered his face to not let his husband know the secret conversation. But who are we kidding? Lan WangJi was observing his expressions like he always does.

"Jiang Cheng", not having enough strength to dismiss YanLi, still he called him out.

Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen paused and turned to face WuXian. Even though Lan XiChen was clueless as the others, Jiang Cheng could read the uncertainty and feebleness in Wei Wuxian's eyes. "Can you stop it? ", Jiang Cheng asked back without waiting for him to form his doubts.

That caught him off guard. Wuxian didn't expect that question at all, shook his head in denial.

"Then let them show everything", There was a determination in his voice they never experienced. "Isn't this more like a public verdict? We don't need to make any excuses for our wrongdoings. We don't have to ask for an explanation of the injustice we had", the darkness in Jiang Cheng's voice was scaring his nephew. "What the hell happened ?", he thought.

"Let them show everything. I'm ready to get teared apart." , Jiang Cheng took broke his eyes from his ShiXiong and whispered, " I'm sick of living with this guilt"

On one day, after the last round had been shot down, Wei WuXian used his right hand to form shade between his brows and looked into the sunset, "Let's wrap things up and stop playing this. Food's waiting at home."

Jiang Cheng, "So early today?"

Wei WuXian tossed the bow to the side and sat on the ground, disappointed, "It's boring. Let's stop. Which ones were last in the round we just did? Go get them with our sixth shidi."