I want to protect you.

Chapter sixteen

Wei Ying...' the voice startled him awake and he sat bolt upright looking around him with wide eyes not sure where the voice had come from or why it knew his name. Oddly enough the voice seemed somewhat familiar which alarmed him even more.

'Who are you?' he thought still not certain why the voice had woken him from a dead sleep nor how it had gotten past Lan Zhan's spiritual energy which normally would have blocked anything from reaching him in his sleep that was of course until he noticed how empty the other side of the bed was...he reached out blindly in the dark to try and see if Lan Zhan had just shifted positions only to find the bed completely empty...the only thing that proved he hadn't been gone long was the fact that it was still warm where he had been laying.

That, of course, brought on quite a few more questions than answers that seemed to rush through his mind in rapid succession. The most prominent one that frightened him was the thought of whether everything that had happened had been a dream. Something for the resentful spirits to use to build him up and break him the moment it got good...This was not the first time this particular thought had entered his mind nor he figured would it be the last...he didn't feel like he fully deserved someone like Lan Zhan but the fact that it occurred when he was the most vulnerable made him wonder if he was relying too heavily on Lan Zhan.

Yes, he loved him but there was a fine line between loving someone and there being an unhealthy attachment but he didn't know where that line was anymore and he knew he was in far too deep to turn back at that point. He flinched when the voice came to washing over him again, 'Wei Ying...' 

'What do you want?' he questioned hearing and mentally kicking his inner voice for shaking as he looked around himself wildly.

'Want...' the voice seemed to contemplate his words before it answered making Wei Ying's blood freeze in his veins, 'I want to protect you...but I can't do that if you keep blocking me.'

'Your one of the spirits that followed me from the burial mounds...' his thoughts provided before he could make sure his inner voice was not proving how frightened he was.

The voice didn't say anything and Wei Ying knew it didn't have to so he changed tactics, 'If you wanted to protect me then why the hell do you keep hurting me?' This time he managed to keep his inner voice from shaking.

'Did not mean to hurt you...knew you couldn't protect yourself without your core so charged my men with protecting you...they listen to me and in turn, they listen to you.' The voice answered after a moment of quiet which had Wei Ying freezing in alarm, 'Who are you?'

'I am your ancestor...General Wei.' The voice answered after a moment's pause and Wei Ying forced himself to not react.

'Prove it?' he stated dryly not knowing how he wanted this spirit to prove who he said he was, 'I don't have time for that, what I can tell you is that you need to be careful what you do from now on. I have complete control of my men but when you lose your temper that control slips...your lack of the seal doesn't help...I keep as much of the resentful energy at bay as I can being full of it myself but when you purposely draw on it my efforts are pointless.' The spirit seemed to complain which in any other circumstances Wei Ying would have found amusing. But the fact that he was tired and the lack of Lan Zhan made it so he didn't find the humor in it and he felt less and less inclined to stay put as he waited needing to make sure that A-Yuan was alright or something until Lan Zhan returned and made the voices go away.

'There is no reason to fear for your son, I have tasked them with protecting him and never harming him so if that ever happens be assured they will be dealt with.' The spirit seemed to wish to reassure him which only made the feeling worse making him feel like the spirit was trying to lure him in with pretty words and a false sense of security...But, he was tired...so tired that he contemplated just curling up on his side and going to sleep...that thought, of course, was even more alarming than the others because he didn't want A-Yuan to be left vulnerable especially with the absence of Lan Zhan.