Little Black Angel

Chapter 7 : A Single Fragment

Chapter 7 : A Single Fragment

As time passed, Jiang Cheng noticed that Xian kept getting more and more depressed, despite how well she managed to hide it from him and Jin Ling. She'd been able to meet Lan Shizui and Lan Jingyi early after the competition, and she'd discovered that Shizui was actually Wen Yuan, a little boy who had lived in Yiling with her. She'd restored the memories he lost from a fever with a new invention she called a "Memory Pendant", and so they'd become close again... but she still fell deeper and deeper into a depressed state. It was obvious to him that it was because of her continued failings to retrieve Wen Ning from wherever he was... but he also sometimes caught her working on a different personal project.

"... Explain it to me again," he said, his face blank as he sat next to her at her working desk and stared at the talismans she was working on.

"These talismans have a special spell I developed that can restore corpses that were damaged in many different ways, although they had a limited amount of strength in them, and so it limits the amount of damage they can mend," she explained, then pointed to one that she'd been altering and said, "I'm trying to raise the power levels so that I can mend more damage with a single talisman. In theory, as long as there is even a trace of the soul of a person in an inanimate corpse, I can restore the corpse even if it's been reduced to ashes... but even with the raised power levels I've been working towards, it'll still take quite a few talismans to do that."

Even without her naming any names, Cheng knew exactly who Xian had in mind when she'd mentioned a body that was reduced to ashes. Although Wen Ning hadn't met that fate, despite Guangshan stating otherwise before the Siege, his sister had. Wen Qing hadn't been a Fierce Corpse, but rather, a living human when she'd been burned to ashes, and he knew that she was one of the people that Xian missed the most having been very close to the girl. He could guess that, in her mind, Xian thought that if she couldn't get Wei Wuxian or Wen Ning back... she could at least get her Aunt-figure back, albeit in a less-alive state than before. Although he was a little wary of her wanting to bring a Fierce Corpse to Lotus Pier... he didn't quite have the heart to deny her the chance if she should ask for it, and he mentally decided that he wouldn't be too angry at her if she went behind his back.

So, when Xian later vanished with a note saying she would be visiting Yiling, Cheng just sighed and told Jin Ling that Xian would be back in a week or so.

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(A/N : I am making up a name for Wen Qing's sword because I saw her using one in the episode with the flashback to when Wen Ning was first awakened, and it didn't look like Suibian to me, so I gave her sword a name since I couldn't find it)

Xian flew towards the site where her Auntie Qing's ashes had been scattered by Jin Guangshan all those years ago, her heart feeling like it was in her throat. She was now twenty years old, and it had been nine years since the Burial Mounds fell... and a little more than nine years since her Auntie Qing had been executed at the pire until reduced to ashes. The remaining Wen Survivors, which had been nothing more than young women and elders, had been mercilessly thrown to drown into the blood-pool. After all this time, she still didn't know what Wen Yuan had been through, but she was completely grateful to Lan Wangji for saving him. Coming down towards the black patch on the ground in front of one of the statues the Cultivators had set up, she was greatly relieved to sense traces of the woman's soul still lingering around the remains of her ashes, and Xian knew that she had her work cut out for her.

One thing that the others didn't know was that Wen Qing had her own Spirit Blade, and Xian had hidden that blade in this area after the woman had died. Its name was Tuishai, which simply meant Light Fading, and Wen Qing had rarely used it due to her dominant medical profession, but her skill with the blade had been wickedly fast. Now, Xian went to the hiding place of the weapon and pulled it out, glad when she saw there was no rust on either blade or the metal decorations on the sheath. Then, going back over to where the ashes had been spread, Xian knelt down on the ground with Tuishai laid horizontally in front of her as she pulled out a stack of talismans. Drawing upon the Dark Arts, she allowed her eyes to turn crimson and black energy to rise up around her, and she could feel the traces of Wen Qing's soul responding to her call, coming back stronger around where her remains were, and Xian then threw all of the talismans in her hand at the black smear on the ground.