There are gasps around the room.
"I hardly recognised him, but he knew who I was. I even threatened him, but Wen Ning forgave me immediately, telling me he knew where Jiang Cheng was being kept, but that he was under strict surveillance, and it was too dangerous to do anything yet. Then he hid me under the pier in a boat, in a secluded part of Lotus Pier, and told me to wait for him.
"I found out later that Wen Chao had organised a banquet to celebrate the taking of Lotus Pier, and then Wen Ning drugged the wine so everyone passed out. Then he smuggled Jiang Cheng out, bringing him to me. I had no plan, nowhere to take him, but Wen Ning said Yiling would be the safest. I asked him about Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu, and he said he would bring us their bodies later, which he did.
"He said Wen Qing was put in charge of the Yiling supervisory office and that we could hide there until we had a plan. Jiang Cheng was still unconscious, and he stayed that way. Wen Ning helped me bring him into a storage room with a bed, saying that no one ever used it except for himself. He went to bring medicine, and then Jiang Cheng woke up.
"When he saw Wen Ning and his robes, it kick-started his trauma, and he made so much noise that Wen Qing discovered us. She knocked him out with her needles, and honestly, I was terrified she was going to kick us out. But Wen Qing was a Healer first, and she let us stay. However, when she examined Jiang Cheng, she found out that Wen Zhuliu had destroyed his golden core. They had tortured him for hours, and he had fresh wounds. She treated him as best as she could and said that he ought to be kept sedated for now."
"I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." Cangse Sanren shudders.
There are murmurs of agreement from around the room.
All of the adults especially, and Lan Huan, have functioning golden cores, and just thinking about losing their primary source of power is unthinkable.
"When he woke up, Jiang Cheng was just...lifeless. He refused to eat or drink, and I was terrified again that he was going to die. He lost the will to live, and when I asked him about it, he demonstrated by pushing me...and I remember him telling me that he had used a hundred percent of his strength. But I had hardly budged. It was so different from when we sparred on the training ground. Our fights were legendary, and entertaining, and everyone knew we never held back. Except when Madam Yu was watching, then that was a different story.
"He sank into such a deep depression, and I didn't know what to do. Everyday entailed coaxing him to eat, to drink a little, to even get out of bed. But these ordinary and usual activities seemed insurmountable to him, and he stopped paying attention to anything I said."
"My poor sweetheart," Cangse Sanren murmurs quietly, reaching out to him again. "You had to shoulder all that by yourself. Where was Jiang YanLi?"
"Wen Ning offered to go and fetch her, bringing her back in a carriage so no one would see. His rank protected him from being asked too many questions, but even so, Wen Qing said we could only stay a maximum of five days. Wen Chao liked to keep checking in on her and she suspected the next random visit would be soon.
"I threw myself into finding some kind of cure for Jiang Cheng and then one day, I found an ancient scroll theorising the transfer of a golden core."
"No! No! You didn't!" Cangse Sanren flips his wrist and checks Wei Ying's core now, her eyes wild with disbelief.
"The Jiang motto is-" Wei Ying begins, but his father finishes it off for him, "-Attempt the impossible."
"Why would you do something like that?" Lan Qiren asks him, the horror of it etched on his face. "Your golden core was exactly that! Yours! You had no right to give it away!"
