Wei WuXian paused, "He passed away."
All of a sudden, Lan WangJi's tear-streaked face, reflecting the firelight, flashed within his mind. He blurted out, "How's Lan Zhan?"
Jiang Cheng, "How could he be? He went back. Father originally wanted to ask people to take him to Gusu. He refused. Judging from how he was, he should've known long ago that the day would come. After all, with the situation at hand, no sect is better than any other."
The two sat down on the wooden fence again. Wei WuXian, "Then what's going on with Lan XiChen?"
Jiang Cheng, "The Wen Sect was going to burn down their Library Pavillion, wasn't it? Tens of thousands of ancient books and music scores. The Lan Sect's people saved some. They probably gave them to Lan XiChen and told him to run away with them. They protected whatever they could, or else everything'd be gone. This is what everyone is guessing."
Looking at the sky, Wei WuXian spoke, "How disgusting."
Jiang Cheng, "Yeah. The Wen Sect is too disgusting."
Wei WuXian, "For how long are they going to jump around like this? We've got so many sects. Can't we join together and..."
Suddenly, a series of footsteps came. A group of boys wearing training clothes leaped across the hallway like monkeys, shouting, "Shixiong!!!"
The youngest shidi beamed, "Shixiong!!! You're alive now!!!"
Wei WuXian, "What do you mean I'm alive now? I've never died to begin with!"
"Shixiong, I heard that you killed a beast over four hundred years old?! Is it true? You killed it?!"
"Compared to this, what I really want to know is, Shixiong, did you really go without food for seven days?!"
"You really haven't secretly practiced inedia behind our backs?!"
"Just how big really was the Xuanwu of Slaughter? Would it fit inside Lotus Lake?!"
"The Xuanwu of Slaughter was just a tortoise right?!"
"Shixiong, you spent the entire seven days with Lan WangJi from Gusu? And he didn't beat you to death?!"
The atmosphere that had been somewhat solemn was immediately smashed into a ruckus.
Wei WuXian's injuries weren't too heavy to begin with. He just didn't apply medicine in time and suffered from both fatigue and hunger. But the physique of his body was quite good. After medicine had been applied to the brand mark on his chest, his fever soon died down. He was lively again with just a few days of rest. After the chaos of the Xuanwu of Slaughter in Dusk-Creek Mountain, the 'Sector of Indoctrination' that the Wen Sect had set up at Qishan had disintegrated completely. All of the disciples returned to their sects. On the other hand, Wen Chao didn't follow up immediately either. Taking the opportunity, Madam Yu gave Wei WuXian a harsh talking-to and ordered him not to take one step out of the gates of Lotus Pier, not even to play in the lake. Thus, he could only shoot kites with the Jiang Sect's disciples, day after day after day.
No matter how fun a game was, playing it every day would eventually become tedious. And so, about half a month later, the boys' interest dwindled. Wei WuXian hadn't been in the mood, either. He shot without any care and even let Jiang Cheng get first place a couple of times.
On one day, after the last round had been shot down, Wei WuXian used his right hand to form shade between his brows and looked into the sunset, "Let's wrap things up and stop playing this. Food's waiting at home."
Jiang Cheng, "So early today?"
Wei WuXian tossed the bow to the side and sat on the ground, disappointed, "It's boring. Let's stop. Which ones were last in the round we just did? Go get them with our sixth shidi."
