Without Sorrow

Chapter 4

This is the sixth time, I've tried updating this story!

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Beware, there is angst.

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An air of tragedy hung over the land like cold mist, the chill of a Gusu winter mingling with useless anger. It clung to the hearts and minds of the group walking towards the city, a gloomy quiet that no one dared to break. A whisper was loud enough and it seemed so disrespectful, to talk freely or to simply pass comment.

Each one walked with their thoughts, their hearts heavy thinking of all that had transpired over the last few hours. It seemed so unbelievable what they had just survived, so impossible that such heroes could have been murdered in such a way. That one man's hate, skills and ambition to make another Seal could ruin so many lives.

Xue Yang was mad for even trying to emulate Wei Ying. There was no one like Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji suspected that only he could acknowledge that truth without a drop of bitterness.

As they made it to the road, they walked, Lan Wangji thought, like a Gusu Lan funeral procession.

The only one less affected was Wei Ying. Perhaps it was the resentful energy he cultivated, the harshness of the Burial Mounds or perhaps it was that iron-will that had seen this man through the darkest of times... but he walked in front, his stride easy, leading them away from this town of misery, steady in his confidence.

But Lan Wangji knew that was not entirely true. From the moment he had realized that Wei Ying had returned, he had been desperate to know this man. Though, he had spent significant time getting to know Wei Ying in the past and loving him from a distance, these long years parted from him, had proven how little he really knew.

There had always been something in the way. Himself, the war, the Burial Mounds, duty...the issue between them of the demonic cultivation Wei Ying was determined to pursue...

Now he had the chance to spend each waking moment with Wei Ying, he had the added problem of distinguishing Mo XuanYu from Wei Ying. This was a new face and Wei Ying's soul. Wei Ying himself was learning how to navigate life in this new body!

Unseen, he watched him lovingly and considered everything Wei Ying did or said carefully. Every expression, every look in those beautiful eyes, every gesture and vocal tone, until he could fill a book in neat calligraphy, each line an ode to this one man. He learned that Wei Ying could lie with the truth. That he could deceive many with a smile, a little distraction.

He could fool Lan Wangji in the same way years ago, but not anymore. Wei Ying was the center of his world. There would be nothing this time, save thier son, that could distract him from Wei Ying. So, he learned that the tell was in those silver eyes.

Try as the man might, he knew that Wei Ying, as ever undaunted, was not as unaffected as he would like the Juniors to believe.

Lan Wangji could see as the man who loved Wei Ying, that he was deeply moved by the story of Xiao XingChen and the tragic death of Maiden A-Qing. Disturbed in many ways by the creation of another fierce corpse like Wen Ning, controlled and used so cruelly.

There was something pensive about him, something guarded and distant. His perfect bow lips were tight with unnamed emotion, his eyes like Bichen in moonlight; sharp and cold.

This day would weigh on Wei Ying for some time, Lan Wangji realized. It would never be spoken of and Wei Ying would deny it, if it was, but he knew in his heart, this would hurt Wei Ying for a while yet. While their deaths had been so brutal and unimaginably callous, for Wei Ying it was more personal. He had experienced it first hand through the power of Empathy and Lan Wangji could see a shadow of remembered pain in Wei Ying's silver eyes as he watched Song ZiChen leave.