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Jiang Cheng runs. He runs through the brushes, ignoring the branches that scratch at his face, the image of his parents’ lifeless bodies still flashing through his mind. His fellow disciples, his shidis and shimeis were dead as well. The Wens had massacred them. He, A-jie and Wei WuXian were the only ones left.
Just then, he hears a loud thump behind him. Jiang Cheng freezes in place and turns around. Wei WuXian had collapsed in the grass behind him. Shit.
Jiang Cheng hurries to his side, panic and fear thumping in his chest. There’s something wet seeping from under his brother and it isn’t the water from the rain pouring down on them. The grass is staining red and the smell of copper fills his lungs. His face is far too pale. And he was far too still.
It’s only then he remembers his brother’s injuries. Yinzhu and Jinzhu holding him back as his mother whips Wei WuXian with Zidian. He had not pulled away, had only kneeled there obediently with a grimace on his face. Jiang Cheng closes his eyes, allowing the heavy weight of guilt and shame to wash over him. His brother hadn’t been injured by the Wens, their enemies, but by his own family. Jiang Cheng’s mother.
Tears spring to his eyes as he turns his brother over as carefully as possible, his hands glowing purple as he tries to stop the bleeding with what little spiritual energy he had left after running all the way to Lotus Pier. How long was he going to hide this? He had been running with Jiang Cheng back to Lotus Pier, not showing a hint of weakness. Stupid idiot...trying to play hero again . Jiang Cheng thinks furiously through his tears as he takes off Wei WuXian’s outer robes to examine the wounds under it. He tears the black cloth into strips and presses them into the cuts along his back. Wei WuXian groans and stirs ever so slightly under his hands, but his eyes only flutter weakly. I need to get him back to A-jie...we need to go to Meishan or else…
He doesn’t finish his thoughts. He had just lost his parents. He couldn’t lose another one of his family either. After checking to make sure no Wen soldiers are hiding in the bushes or behind the trees, he lifts Wei WuXian over his shoulders and onto his back as carefully as possible. Wei WuXian’s head lolls on his shoulder and next to his ear. Jiang Cheng ignores the pounding in his chest and he hurriedly walks through the trees to the spot where they had left Jiang Yanli waiting for them. He can hear his brother’s faint and ragged breathing next to his ear, drowning out the rain.
“A-Cheng,” His sister’s anxious face is there in the distance, but as they get closer, her expression quickly turns to fear.
“A-Cheng! What happened? A-Xian...he’s,” His sister’s voice chokes into sobs.
“Not the Wens,” Jiang Cheng’s voice is shaking. “It was Mother..she..she hit him with Zidian before the Wens came.”
“What?” The distress in her voice was clear. “How could sh-...her and father, they…?” Jiang Cheng only shakes his head, tears streaming down his face again. His grief was now mixed with anger. How could his mother do this? How could she continue to whip Wei WuXian even while Jiang Cheng had begged her to stop. It was as if she didn’t know how much he meant to her children. How they thought of him as their own blood kin despite her lectures at them to keep their distance.
Between her sobs, Yanli puts a hand on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and one touches Wei WuXian’s face which hangs limply to the side.
“We need to get him to a healer...or..,” Yanli swallows. “We need to hurry.” Jiang Cheng only nods. They go into town as conspicuously as possible. It is hard when Jiang Cheng is carrying his unconscious brother on his back and the Wen soldiers are marching the streets, but they settle down inside an inn room.
Together, Jiang Cheng and his sister lay Wei WuXian down onto the bed on his side. His wounds had reopened under the desperate bandaging Jiang Cheng had with strips of clothes.
“We should clean these wounds first and rest for a bit before going to Meishan,” A-jie says, her voice wobbling and her face still streaked in tears. Jiang Cheng nods numbly, his vision blurred in his own tears. I’m sorry I didn’t do more. I should have stopped her.
“A-Cheng, it’s not your fault...Mother is..,” her voice falters and trails off as she begins to rebandage Wei WuXian’s scar marks.
“I should have stopped her,” Jiang Cheng’s voice is hollow. “We were supposed to fight the Wens , not hurt our own people! How could sh-,” He breaks off with a choking sob of anger. He didn’t know how he could grieve his mother’s death when he felt so angry at her at the same time.
Luckily, the inn keeper had a few simple medical supplies such as bandages and medical salves kept in his storage room. It wasn’t much, but it would be sufficient enough to stop the bleeding. It would be too risky to have a physician come into the inn. It would draw too much attention to them.
Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli sit close to the bed as they tend to their brother’s wounds. The small groans of pain escaping his older brother’s mouth cut down deeper than any wound or cut he received in the past. He takes his brother’s hand and holds it close to his chest.
I’m sorry. I’ll protect you better next time. I promise.