Lilium {Mo Dao Zu Shi}

Bluebell [Chapter 28]

A/N: Guys, bear with me. I will post the final fight as well. I just need some time for it. It's in the previous unpublished chapter 27. I know, I know. It's weird. But I don't wanna be stuck in the story just cuz of one thing in particular.

♥︎

Yu ZiYuan creaked her eyes open slowly. Every single joint in her body hurt, as if her bones had been crushed to powders. Her head felt too light and too heavy at the same time. It was a white ceiling.

The Jin healing quarters. She had been here before. She knew the sight in an instant.

"Awake?" Came a familiar voice. The call was stern, but Yu ZiYuan broke into a smile even thought it hurt her face.

"Healer Ling...." She croaked quietly.

Ling Xiang sighed heavily, "Do not speak. You're barely alive. Even then, there is no guarantee of your recovery. You're still not out of danger yet."
"Well...I am conscious..."
"That doesn't mean anything." Ling Xiang replied, her voice turning stern again as she finally entered Yu ZiYuan's range of vision. It seemed like she was behind the healing bed.

"How long...was I..out...?" Her voice was a cracked thing.
"3 days. Also, what part of 'do not speak' did you not get? I said do not speak. So do not speak. That includes answering questions in even simple 'yes' or 'no'." Ling Xiang arranged out several bottles of medicines for her. Yu ZiYuan promptly shut her mouth. She could faintly smell the medicines, the room filling with a mix of many herbal smells and having a strange aura covering the air.

"I will call the others." Ling Xiang quickly left the room to inform the other that she was awake. Yu ZiYuan sighed. If anything, she knew what Ling Xiang meant very well. It just, didn't matter to her that much.

Her head was pounding, as if she was drowning endlessly in a dark sea. She seemed to at times feel too cold, or too hot. Yu ZiYuan knew what it meant. She had felt like this before. She had lost too much blood. Her body was in a shape beyond recovery. She could understand that from the pain in her joints, although she still could move her body.

The last thing she remembered was getting unconscious from the battle. Had they sealed Wenyi Yicheng?

The calm around her suggested that they had.

Yu ZiYuan sighed in relief. Maybe it was all over, finally. She heard footsteps, quick ones, walk into the room.

"Aunt Yu!" Wei WuXian was the first to walk in. Jiang Cheng following suit, "A-Niang!" Faces twisted in worry, and eyes teary with relief, they looked so hurt it made Yu ZiYuan want to hold them tightly.

But...

"....." Were they supposed to call her that?

Yu ZiYuan mentally facepalmed.

"Don't be so loud. They'll know." They were shushed by the same stern voice.
Wei WuXian laughed, wiping his eyes with his index finger, "You really are like Wen Qing."

Ling Xiang stilled a bit in the mention of Wen Qing, even though it was for a small moment, which didn't go unnoticed by the injured patient.

Jiang Cheng hurried to her, "It's okay. Healer Ling knows. We told her. She's trustworthy."

Yu ZiYuan held a hand with much effort and touched her son's face. It was smooth, with the exception of just one scar from the battle across his left cheekbone.

"Are you out of your mind?! Put that hand down!" Ling Xiang gritted her teeth, "Don't move! You need rest."

A soft smile bloomed into the sect leader's face as he put her hand down, "I am fine. All three of us are." Wei WuXian walked next to the bed, sitting softly on it with a relaxed expression, "Aunt Yu, please rest. The juniors will come to visit you soon."

Yu ZiYuan looked at him with a silent question in his eyes.

Jiang Cheng read and it answered, "He doesn't know yet. Do you want him to know?"

A small nod.

"Do you want me to tell him?"

A small shake.

"When you can speak, tell him yourself." Wei WuXian put a hand over hers, silver gaze filled with something unreadable, but profound.
"He deserves to know the truth. And it would be best for you to tell him."

Yu ZiYuan creaked a small smile of approval, softly giving a small rub to his hand. Jiang Cheng nodded, "A-Niang, we'll be going then. Please rest."

As the footsteps of her two children echoed with them leaving, another person's body weight shifted into the bed.

"Your nephew mentioned Wen Qing..." Ling Xiang looked down at the bedsheets with a somber look. Her long fingers settled into the bed, elegant but strong.

"She was once a junior friend of mine. All the way back, when the Qishan Wen sect was still in power.

A time of history that almost seems too distant to be a memory. It felt more like a myth now, that once upon a time, there was sect called the Qishan Wen sect, which was a sect with great power, but a tyranical ruler.

"Back then, I had tried to help her out of the Wen sect. But in the end, how much could I, an outsider do? I am not a Jin by blood. Just a sect disciple who turned good enough to be the head healer."

It was unnatural, seeing a woman like her lament. Yu ZiYuan would think so in the past. But now it was a different case. Was she herself so different from this healer?

Not at all.

Dazed eyes followed the next words, "When the Yiling Patriarch took the Dafan Wens in, I was very happy. I thought they would finally be able to live in peace a little, even though the place they had settled in was the Burial Mounds. I thought with the help of the Yiling Patriarch, they would be fine."

Yu ZiYuan listened intently.

"All my life, I had always been against the attack at the Burial Mounds against the Yiling Patriarch. However, I did not have the courage to speak up. At the end, I am also just a woman, fighting for survival."

Yu ZiYuan knew where she was coming from. If Ling Xiang had said something, the Jin sect would have immediately fired her, or worse.

A stagnent voice entered her air, a little quiet, a little pained, "When Hanguang-Jun was whipped thirty three times with a discipline whip, none in the Lan sect wanted to do it. The sect leader asked the then Jin sect leader, Jin Guangyao, for help, as they were close. I treated him for the entirety of his injured period, as no one else was willing, either out of fear, or out of disgust of his actions. Who would have known, that in the end, he had always been right, and that he was punished wrongfully?"

Those quiet words rendered a peaceful silence, as Ling Xiang softly stood up, and left the room to tend to another patient.

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Note: Bluebell represents quiet resilience and humility.