Wen RuoHan's Heir

3. Year 2: The Burial Mounds

Xie An was surprised when she was selected to patrol the Burial Mounds the following year. "You're old enough," she was informed. "And you're the second junior disciple, now. You should be taking on more responsibilities towards the Sect."

The title meant nothing in the midst of the Burial Mounds. It was freezing, colder than that first winter during the war had been. Made worse because this cold wasn't external; tendrils of something frigid wound their way through her meridians, her veins, wrapped around her organs.... "You're feeling the resentful energy," Jiang ZongZhu stated looking at her shivering in the weak sunlight.. "It's normal."

Xie An followed her sect leader's eyes as he gazed around what had been a small village. Houses falling down from neglect and poor building skills. A great hall of sorts where they perhaps held communal meals or meetings. These would have been her people, had they lived. DafanWen, yes, but still subservient to the QishanWen.

Her people... executed because they were Wen. As she would be executed if her birth status was known. Her current sect leader might appreciate her skills in night hunting and teaching her juniors; he would still condemn her to death if he ever discovered she was Wen Chao's daughter. It was a sobering thought. "Do you think he'll return?"

"Yes," the sect leader snapped. Irritability was a side effect of being in this corrosive environment. Or perhaps Jiang ZongZhu was merely being his normal exacerbated self. "He hasn't finished what he started."

Xie An supposed 'finishing what he started' was ensuring the final member of the Jiang family died at his hands, Although he hadn't precisely killed the previous sect leader.... Nor had he killed Jiang YanLi. They were dead, nonetheless, and dead because of his actions. She looked around some more: the dead trees looming over the settlement, a muddy hole filled with weeds, what she supposed were vegetable fields once upon a time. "How could they live here?" she wondered aloud. "It looks so... like it could have been a normal village at one point. Shouldn't it look..." she floundered for a better description as to what she had thought this displaced cultivation sect would look like.

"More evil? More demonic?" Jiang ZongZhu knelt by the muddy area. "He tried to grow lotus flowers here. He had the whole of Lotus Pier to go back to... all the lotus plants he could hope for right there with us, and instead he wanted to stay here and grow lotus fucking flowers!" He grabbed a handful of weeds, and yanked them out and threw them angrily. "Fuck you, Wei WuXian. Fuck you and your Wen dogs." He stood and swiped his hands against his skirts. "I'm glad they're dead. They should have died in that fucking work camp. Then you would have...." He stopped ranting to breathe harshly. "A'Jie would still be alive if you stayed with us, stayed where you belonged. That peacock would still be alive, too. And I wouldn't have to raise my fucking nephew! It's not my responsibility, you fucker! We were supposed to be the fun uncles, the ones who'd teach A'Ling everything a boy should know that's not found in school.... Instead? Instead I have to parent him with those Jin bastards! Fucking assholes think I shouldn't take on A'Jie's responsibilities...." He continued to breathe harshly, angrily, his free hand's fingers forming fists again and again, with occasional flashes as ZiDian spit out her master's ire.

There was nothing to punch here. Nothing to punish, to turn his anger on. What remained of the Wen settlement was already punished enough....

Xie An stayed mute; there was no sense in speaking and possibly turning her sect leader's ire onto herself. As a junior cultivator from the YunmengJiang Sect, she couldn't agree with what Wei WuXian did: stealing the DafanWen from the Jin work camp and killing their guards? Weren't they prisoners of war? Enemy cultivators? Why would he abandon his sect to protect the enemy? Why would he turn his Ghost General on Jin ZiXuan? His sect sister's husband? Surely his legendary dislike of the man was tempered by his love, or at least respect, for his shijie? Even looking at it from a Wen perspective, his actions made no sense. Her father would never have rescued his enemies from a work camp. Neither would any other of her relatives. The enemy is the enemy; once captured, their only use is for target practice. She supposed she'd never learn the answers to those questions.... Wei WuXian seemed to prefer being dead to returning as a fierce corpse or vengeful ghost. His secrets were just as gone as he was.