Past is set in stone, only your feelings may change

Overprotective

Wei Wuxian finally managed to overcome the shock of finding out that he had actually reincarnated; or perhaps a better expression would be had been called back from the dead. Once he looked at his arm which held four deep cuts, he immediately understood that someone had used one of the rituals he had never intended to bring to life and had summoned him as a vengeful spirit.

He smiled bitterly to himself. It seemed like he was still being considered a wicked man, the Yiling Patriarch, who would be perfect for extracting revenge on someone. Apparently, he would never be able to clear his reputation even after death, not that he had expected anything else. But being thrown back to kill for someone? Well, that was a little too much even for him.

"I wish I was still dead," he said unhappily to his own reflecting in a bucket of water.

He was still a little disoriented under the current circumstances and decided he needed to rest, surely he would feel better after a good long sleep. Not that he was allowed even that with being chased and kicked around by basically everyone in the household in which he had so suddenly found himself brought to.

He was walking around the premises, trying to get familiar with them. It seemed like he would have to stay here for the foreseeable future. After how a servant had treated him, Wei Wuxian was sure that at least one of the scars on his forearm represented someone from here, if not all of them. It did not look like Mo Xuanyu had been treated terribly well here if he had been called a madman and beaten.

But would it really bring a man to the point where he would want to sacrifice his own immortal soul only to get revenge? Wei Wuxian was not sure. Then again, he had been here only for less than an hour, he had not seen everything yet. That much was clear to him.

In the middle of his explorative stroll, he suddenly froze and his whole being shuddered. He heard voices approaching but that was not what had taken him by surprise. It was the robes of the people who were talking. They were Gusu Lan sect disciples, young ones, perhaps the same age as Lan Zhan and him had once been in their happier days. It must have been a group of juniors on one of their first unsupervised night hunts. He could not explain their presence here in any other way.

This was bad. If he would do anything suspicious, they would surely immediately discover his true identity and bring him to face the cultivation world with which he did not want to have anything in common anymore. He would not mind facing judgement for his actions if it could change anything. However, he did not think that it would at this point.

Still, he felt somehow drawn to the juniors. They seemed way too young to be travelling around on their own, he wondered what king of beast or spirit they were night hunting. He had to smile to himself, he imagined that once upon a time, it could have been him and Lan Zhan travelling around like this and helping innocent people against creatures of resentful energy. If only everything had not fallen apart in his previous life.

He wondered if should A-Yuan be alive today, would he had been the same age as them? It was a bittersweet memory for him. Would his son in all but name had ever become an outstanding cultivator if he had the correct upbringing? He would never know as the child he had once taken care of was no more. These Gusu Lan sect disciples reminded him of what could have been if things went differently in the past.

Since the juniors presumably did not have anyone to keep an eye on them, Wei Wuxian decided that he would stick around. At least until he would make sure that the Gusu Lan sect would not lose anyone from the new generation. He wondered what Lan Zhan was doing and if Lan Xichen was still the sect leader; surely they would be very upset if anything happened to the youths.

Yes, he would stay in hiding and observe, and if a time came when the children would need help, he would do his best to provide it without having his identity discovered.