Useless

Chapter 9

Lan Xichen was having the time of his life as he and the other disciples with him were making their way down to Biling lake.

They all had arrived in Caiyi town an hour earlier and the whole way here, Wei Wuxian never seemed to stop talking. Not like that was a bad thing of course. Lan Xichen was actually quite interested in hearing what the other had to say. Sometimes he was telling stories about water ghouls to the young Wen Ning, other times he was joking with his brother, and then he would point out something unique that had caught his eye in the town. He just seemed to have such a bright personality despite his injury and Lan Xichen immediately took a liking to him. It also helped that his little brother also seemed to be interested in Wei Wuxian.

Even though currently, Wei Wuxian was trying to get Lan Wangji's attention. His little brother had turned his golden brown eyes to him when Wei Wuxian had gotten too close to him. His eyes seemed to scream help me, but Xichen just smiled at the two of them. It was just so adorable how his brother was acting. He turned his head in another direction, keeping an amused smile on his face.

Soon, the disciples had arrived at the dock of the lake. There were six boats waiting for them in the water at the end of the pier. Lan Xichen decided to have a little pity on his brother and split Wangji and Wei Wuxian up in two different boats. Lan Xichen himself had taken the lead boat with a few Lan disciples. Jiang Wanyin was in a boat by himself and the Wen siblings were on another one. The rest of the Lan disciples were then placed at the rear in the last remaining boat.

Talismans had been placed at the front of the boats so that they could move on their own towards the center of the lake. Once everyone had been situated. Lan Xichen turned to all of the disciples.

"Let us set out," he said.

Wei Wuxian hummed in delight when the boats started moving. The fog over the lake was dense but it just excited Wuxian even more. This was his first night hunt in months. This had to be fun.

To his right was Lan Wangji's boat. He smiled at the other boy's serious expression. Behind them, Jiang Cheng gave those two a look. Why was his brother looking at Lan Wangji like that?

"Everyone, be careful," Lan Xichen's voice sounded from ahead. "We're heading towards the haunted area."

"Zewu-jun," Wei Wuxian called out to the Lan clan leader. "Water ghouls are very clever. What if they hide away from us and we can't find them?"

Lan Wangji answered from beside him. "It's our job to stop them. We'll wait."

Wei Wuxian was about to retort when he glanced down at Lan Wangji's boat. For some reason, his boat seemed to be sinking lower into the water than what it was supposed to be. He grabbed a paddle from inside of his own boat.

"Hey Lan Zhan, look at me!" he shouted.

Lan Wangji's golden brown eyes widened a bit when he turned to see a splash of water coming towards him. He jumped up from his boat and landed in Wei Wuxian's. He glanced behind him to the other boy. "Boring..." he muttered.

Wei Wuxian gave him a playful smile before turning back to Lan Wangji's now overturned boat. When a creature slid down from the top of it and back into the water, Wei Wuxian furrowed his eyebrows. "What is that?" he asked aloud.

"I've never seen a water ghoul like that before," Jiang Cheng said from behind them.

"Don't tell me that they have been mutated...." Wen Qing murmured worriedly.

Lan Xichen turned toward all of them. "Young master Wei, how did you know that the water ghoul was under the boat?" he asked.

"That's easy. Lan Zhan's boat had only him on it but the boat seemed to sink deeper than the boats with multiple people in them, so I guessed that there was a water ghoul under it," he explained.