Past is set in stone, only your feelings may change

Back in the past?

Jiang Cheng was laying in his bed with his eyes wide open. It had been hours and he still could not sleep. And who would be able to after what had just happened? His whole world seemed to have turned upside down in a matter of a single strike of Zidian and he could not understand anything anymore.

He had hated Wei Wuxian for more than a decade. He was sure that it had been his brother's fault for picking up demonic cultivation out of the blue and then succumbing to it and causing Jiang Yanli's and Jin Zixuan's deaths, orphaning thus Jin Ling. And even before, he had always blamed his brother for causing unnecessary trouble with his hero complex that he could not control. Had his parents and his sect not paid the highest price for that?

But Wei Wuxian apparently just had to go and do everything difficult for him. He had learned yesterday that the golden core inside of him was not really his. He hated his brother for giving it to him as well and for humiliating him like this. As if he was not strong enough to live without a golden core just like Wei Wuxian. Now he felt even weaker compared to his brother.

"Useless," he could hear his mother's voice inside his head. Despite being dead for so many years, the woman still often came back to haunt his peace. If it was not for Wei Wuxian, she could have been alive and say it to his face! His father could have been alive, his sister and her husband as well. The junior disciples who had trained with them during their younger days could have been alive.

Yes, everything was Wei Wuxian's fault. He and his stupid heroic stunts. And he even dared to waltz back into Jiang Cheng's life, just like that, as if he had never left and never done anything to hurt him. He brought Lan Wangji to Lotus Pier and was being shameless in front of his patents' memorial tablets. How dared he!

Since Jiang Cheng could not sleep at all, too enraged to do so and laying in the bed and staring at the ceiling was only giving him time to think about unpleasant things, he decided it was time to not try to rest anymore. He got out of the bed, put his outer robe on and went for a stroll around Lotus Pier.

He had always liked the peacefulness and quietness of his home at night. It always helped him to calm down. Walking around and just listening to the wind playing with the water in the ponds, observing the moonlight reflecting on the gentle waves singing against the wood of the piers, walking around and not thinking about anything.

When he came back to his senses and stopped walking, he found himself in front of a familiar room. Although it had been more than a decade and he positively hated his brother, for some reason, he still kept his room intact. He had even placed Chenqing inside after he had retrieved it from the Burial Mounds. It was like some kind of a morbid sanctuary or an altar to the Yiling Patriarch, to the former Yunmeng Jiang sect head disciple, to Wei Wuxian, to his brother who was no longer dead.

He did not know what pushed him to go inside, he had not entered for several years now and left the cleaning to the servants. Just as always, the room was a mess since he had forbidden anyone to touch anything. Talismans were scattered all around and Chenqing was peacefully laying on the table.

He went closer, mesmerized and with his body not really listening to him. He reached out his hand and touched the demonic flute with his fingers. For the longest time, this had been the last memento he got of his brother.

Suddenly, there was a bright light which made him cover his eyes. The world turned around him faster and faster until he was completely out of breath. The light died out and he opened his eyes. He looked around, completely confused.

He recognized the place immediately. It was the forest floor where he had broken down after Lotus Pier had been burned down and he had seen his parents' death. It was here where he had blamed his brother for the tragedy. It was here where he had wanted to kill him and tightened his hands around Wei Wuxian's neck. It was here where their family bond had been broken for the first time.

The situation was the same as before. Only with one difference. He was the one being choked now. When he tried to move, he realized that the body did not belong to him, he was just a spectator who could feel everything Wei Wuxian was feeling and thinking but could do nothing about it. A tear slipped down the side of his face.