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If asked, Jin Zixuan would have never said that trust would be the thing that killed him. He would have gone for a sword, or an enemy, or perhaps politics, long years down the line, when Jin Ling was an adult and could take care of things the proper way. He never imagined that trust, his trust in the way things were supposed to be instead of how they were, would be the thing to end him. Or maybe it was naiveté, his own, in that moment, when he looked at the angry and hurt expression on Wei Wuxian’s face and chose to believe the three hundred soldiers ambushing him instead.
Because there was a certain type of humiliation, of despair that came in his own death, and Jin Zixuan was fairly sure that this particular moment was the one in which the fates decided he lost the right to a glorious death.
“Call him back and come to Koi Tower with me!” he yelled, while the Ghost General raged and soldiers died on the rocks. “We’ll sort this out!”
“If I call him back, I won’t even die a full corpse!” Wei Wuxian yelled, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his robes billowing around what felt like a too tiny frame for someone who used to match him in sword skills.
“They won’t!” he yelled over the mayhem. “I’ll tell them not to shoot! Come peacefully, and we can sort this out!”
Wei Wuxian looked at him with something truly pained in his expression. Anger gave way to sadness, to resignation, an emotion that, at that time, Jin Zixuan had been pissed to witness. People were dying, but Wei Wuxian seemed caught in a moment, fingers grasping a delicate box in his hands, his frame too still for the chaos going around.
“A-Li is still waiting for you!”
Wei Ying took a deep breath and looked up. The look of pain wasn’t gone but buried. He tossed him something, and Jin ZIxuan caught the box in his hands. It was fragile, somehow too delicate for his sword roughened hands.
“Make sure A-Ling gets it!” Wei Wuxian yelled, the Ghost General screeched and more people perished in one single blow. Jin Zixuan nodded and tucked it in his pocket.
Wei Wuxian pulled out his flute and played a few notes. They felt different than the ones heard on the battlefield so far, somehow more, somehow foreboding. The Ghost General stopped. He jumped off the cliff and came near his master, moves slow and sluggish, as if he was tired.
Corpses didn’t get tired.
“Don’t shoot!” Jin ZIxuan yelled, and his voice echoed in each and every crevice of the path. Silence followed, and the Jin heir moved his eyes on his brother in law. Wei Wuxian held his gaze as he stepped forward.
It all happened too fast for Jin Zixuan to do anything. In the back of his mind - later, he’d wonder Where were these archers in the Sunshot campaign? Why were we prived of such skill, of the skill needed to fill the back of the Yiling Patriarch with so many arrows he looked like a pincushion.
Wei Wuxian fell to the ground, and Jin Zixuan found himself there, hands full of blood before his ears could comprehend the inhuman sounds of the Ghost General. Wei Wuxian’s hand gripped both of his, lips moving in words Jin Zixuan could never quite recall later, no matter how much the scene haunted his nightmares. His ears rang in the aftermath of the yell, and his eyes stung as they stared into the blind, blood filled gaze of the Ghost General.
Then they were both gone.
It took awhile for the rest of the world to come to his senses. I, it took a while before Jin Zixuan could register the happy cheers and the cries, and Zixun grinning in elation, with his hand on his shoulder.
Shouts of “The Yiling Patriarch is dead!” filled Qiongqi path, but Jin Zixuan could only see A-Li and her excited face when she realised her brother would come to the celebration. But I killed him.
There was something in his hands, and Jin Zixuan slowly recognized that it was Chenqing, its red tassel shining brighter than the blood on the ground.
~O~
The elation died fairly quickly once Zixun realised the holes were still present. The horror dawned on Jin Zixuan even more, the only excuse his traitorous mind could come up with now gone, his cousin’s increasing desperate shrieks filling the air and the small space they all had the misfortune to be in.
He didn’t remember much from that day. Time seemed to have passed way too fast for him to notice, but he does remember some things in awful clarity.
He remembers A-Li’s pained cry, the way her knees collapsed as she hugged the small box to her chest, as if it could somehow bring her brother back. He remembers Jiang Wanyin’s downright animal like growl towards him – just like Wen Ning’s, same eyes filled with too much pain and too much rage to fill one body – and the way he cradled A-Li and A-Ling close, like they were going to vanish too.
He remembers his father’s pleased expression, A-Yao trying to distract everyone, and his mother trying to console A-Li, saying all the wrong things and Jiang Wanyin’s sword at her throat when her voice reached what neither could bear.
He remembers the two of them and the Second Jade of Lan speeding away, and he remembers his own inability to follow.
~O~
If there was one thing that must be said about Wei Wuxian, is that he always moved fast. He’d been right in that regard, people saying that he was impulsive, and maybe, just maybe, they should have thought better before attacking him.
As people had started to die around him, Jin Zixuan felt some morbid sense of satisfaction.
How quickly had people forgotten that Wei Wuxian had been called the Yiling Patriarch for a reason. How willing had they been to ignore that being harmless and being peaceful were two very different things.
How dearly they all paid for their ignorance.
~O~
The curse quickly got the name “The Jin blood curse.” Quite fitting.
It seemed to affect anyone who was blood related to the Jin family, a terrible and truly creative condition for the man who was rumoured to have killed every Wen he could in a new and more interesting way than the previous.
His mother was spared, and so was A-Li. So were the many servants and concubines, and the many prostitutes who graced the halls of the palace.
Their children?..... not so much.
The marks of the curse were quite obvious, once it started: a sudden illness, corpse-like markings (like Wen Ning’s had been when his master died) blooming like flowers, their veins, red and blue and green pulsing through the thin rice paper skin. Then, the person died, usually slowly and painfully, with different symptoms, different pains.
The closer one was to the main Jin line, the more horrible their curse was. His father’s bastard children started dying, his mother more angry than ever - although there was some sick vindication whenever she looked at his father’s withering health, at his dying muscles, at his inability to hold himself. Every time she reminded him that he was the sole cause for it.
Jin Zixuan couldn’t say if the curse was more merciful or cruel as it waited for kids to reach the age of fifteen before it started cutting them off. If maybe it was kind for letting them live, or cruel for letting people love them before they perished.
A-Li took Jin Ling and left for Lotus Pier. Jin Zixuan couldn’t bring himself to blame them, not when Jiang Wanyin held a sword to his throat, a clarity bell, carefully carved but deformed in ways no one could ever hope to fix clenched in his hand. Not when the words held more pain then anger as he yelled that he’ll kill any Jin to ever step onto his territory.
Every Jin but Jin….Jiang Ling.
Jin Zixuan couldn’t be mad about that either. Not when people died and he didn’t.
Years passed, and people passed with them. Koi Tower remained bold and bright as illness spread, the gold and jewels keeping all the rot inside, putting up a great façade, even if it didn’t matter now that everyone knew that curse still raged.
His father was lucky enough to die faster than most, and his mother never even pretended to be sad about it. She was only bitter that his suffering had ended so fast.
Jin Zixuan hadn’t been in the room, but he knew what happened down to the smallest details. He knew how Qin Canqye marched into the throne room and stabbed his father cleanly before walking out.
He had seen with his own eyes and stopped the guards from doing anything as he hugged and cried on Qin Su’s shoulder, as he held her too carefully, as if the markings on her skin would turn to cracks and shatter her frail frame to pieces.
Once, he might have felt sadness for his father being gone. He might have mourned him, he might have glared at people who dared shame his name. Once.
Before his father had turned him into a killer, before his father had caused so carelessly the death of too many, first by bringing them into the world without thought for consequences, and second, killing his brother in law with willing ignorance to them.
Jin Zixuan holds Chenqing every night, looking for a scrap of energy. He can’t bring himself to let it go, he can’t bring himself to give it to the people it rightfully belongs to.
His mother was placed as the new and current Sect Leader. It was nothing against Jin Zixuan, but….
He was the heir. His death was inevitable, and everyone had agreed that the Jin line would die sooner or later. His mother would have to lead, and the role fit her better than any tailored robe ever would.
“That’s good.” A-Li smiled, holding his hand in the way he oh so missed and his mind could never replicate. The buns in his hands were cold from the journey, but still fresh, still tasty, still carrying the scent of Yunmeng he never quite appreciated in the early years of his childhood when he’d still been allowed in. When he’d been invited. “I’m sure she’s doing a great job with it.”
“You’re doing a great job with A-Ling.” he smiled and allowed himself to pull his wife into a hug.
A-Ling was young, barely five, and had gotten tired of cuddling next to his parents. Jin Zixuan had promised him to play and chase him later, but, so far, he seemed content to play with A-Yuan, chasing each other around the meadow.
Qinghe was cold this time of the year, but A-Li hadn’t stepped in Lanling for years and he couldn’t step in Yunmeng. None of them had even dared suggest Yiling.
“I’m still trying to convince A-Cheng….”
“You don’t have to.” he sighed. He would have wanted, oh, how much he would have wanted to be able to live with his son and wife, to see them more often than every few months. “He won’t change his mind.” not after he had killed his brother, no matter how indirectly “And I can’t stand to see you cry when he refuses.” he pulled her close, his own eyes getting hot, and he didn’t bother to hold them in. “Before we married, I promised I’d never make you cry again.”
“A-Xuan….” A-Li’s smile was wet, so Jin Zixuan had broken that vow once again.
~O~
Years passed and Jin ZIxuan’s skin remained clear and pristine. No mark, no curse, no wart ever marked it, no illness caught his body while everyone else kept dying.
A-Yao died in Cloud Recess, and even Nie Mingjue stepped on his pride to join him in his last month. Jin Zixuan was the one to place his ashes and his tablete in the ancestral hall.
There was no one to care enough to do it for him.
~O~
“Qing-mei says it was the Burial Mounds.” A-Li speaks while Jin ZIxuan sips from her bowl of soup. A-Ling and the Jiang disciples are on a simple night hunt, and he promised he’d stay later to talk to Jin Zixuan. The man can still feel the lingering warm print of the kid’s hands around his middle.
A-Ling is barely ten, but A-Li trusts A-Yuan to keep him out of trouble.
“Hm?”
He vaguely remembers the woman from her youth, when he was standing by Wen Ruohan’s side. He can’t say he knows her face now.
“A-Xian…” A-Li said and his voice couldn’t hide the sob. “A-Xian would have never hurt so many innocent people. He would have never cursed kids for the sins of their parents.” The Wens proved that well enough.
“But…”
“A-Ning says the Burial Mounds were more sentient than we originally assumed. They’d gotten…. they’d gotten attached to A-Xian.” she smiled. “He even got an ancient monster to love him.” her smile and eyed were wet, and Jin Zixuan pulled her deeper into a hug.
“So the curse….”
“He didn’t curse you.” she said, and smiled into his chest. “It wasn’t him who cursed all of you.”
~O~
Koi Tower is filled with cultivators, with witches and wizards and demonic cultivators. They stayed even after A-Yao died, looking desperately for ways to break the curse. A-Yu, a weak normal cultivator but a strong demonic one, lasted the longest.
Father had brought him in before he died. A-Yu had been timid, and scared and bore all the glares and the knowledge that he’d die unless he could fix it. He had shrugged the name Mo like an ill fitting coat, ready to embrace the cursed name everyone despised.
A-Yu was young, younger than they had been when the war started, but not by much. Young and scared and with no one in his corner, so Jin Zixuan decided to step in.
The marks appeared on the day of his fifteenth birthday, but they didn’t act in until three years after the fact.
A-Yu was small and weak and scared. He was stressed beyond belief and bullied to the point of tears.
A-Yu was smart and bright and got further than most ever could. He had a bright smile when he dared push his hair out of his face, had a high, clear voice and too much energy once there was no one to threaten him. He was shy and starved for love and latched onto the smallest bits Jin Zixuan had first offered.
A-Yu was different from A-Ling. Much older, much mild mannered, with a mean streak Zixuan couldn’t help but grow fond of.
Jin Zixuan didn’t know why he started in the first place. A-Yu was going to die anyway, and it was only going to hurt more the longer Zixuan tried to help him. But he did.
On the day of A-Yu’s fifteen birthday, Jin Zixuan brought a cake to his room and played games with him until the early hours of the morning. The Jin heir couldn’t remember the last time his parents tucked him in, if they ever did and he knew for sure they never tried after the age of twelve.
He had tucked A-Yu in and smoothed his hair, the same way he once dared think he would with Jin Ling. He watched a shy but hopeful smile bloom onto his half brother’s face, the horridness of the marks on his skin now forgotten, and Jin ZIxuan came back to put him to sleep every night from then on.
A-Yu became good at putting on makeup, at covering his marks with coloured powders, and no one cared to speak anything on it. Not when Jin Zixuan, with his clear skin and clearer guilt glared at them the moment they dared look disapproving.
A-Yu loved A-Ling, in the year Jin ZIxuan made the courage to have them meet. He seemed to grow quickly on A-Yuan, and A-Li had looked at Jin Zixuan with the type of pride she used to look at her brothers with, back when they were A-Yu’s age, all innocent in Cloud Recess.
A-Yu was eighteen when he started getting shortness of breath, he was an adult and too old to be rocked to sleep when the curse finally kicked in. He was almost as tall as Jin ZIxuan himself when he laid with his head in his lap, when blood was pouring from the corners of his mouth. His tears were red and staining the silk of Jin ZIxuan’s nightclothes, but he didn’t let go of the kid. He held A-Yu the way A-Li would have liked to hold Wei Wuxian when he died, and rocked him slightly as the other sputtered.
“Er-ge, Er-ge” A-Yu breathed and smiled, smiled wider than he ever had. “Thank you, Er-Ge, thank you so so much, thank you…”
A-Yu died quickly and painlessly. He died smiling, he died with Jin Zixuan holding him, he died thanking for the love he never hoped would receive.
He died quickly and painlessly. It was more than anyone else had dared ask for.
~O~
“And then, Wen-gongzi punched the statue so hard, it cracked into a thousand pieces!” A-Ling said excitedly.
“I’m glad you’re doing well on night hunts.” Jin Zixuan smiled and pulled his son closer. A-Ling pretended to fluster, but he leaned in, he kept talking too fast and too excited. Jin Zixuan wanted to pay attention, he really did…
But he couldn’t.
He could only look at his face, track all the people he could see in it. He could only look at his clear skin, at all the life in him and remember A-Yu’s dying breaths, remember how fast he left the world like he was never there in the first place.
A-Ling would be fifteen in three months.
“I am!” he said, trying to get as much cheer into it. “JiuJiu said that now I’m old enough to go on my own, so, maybe you can join me next time?” he asked but there was a waver in his voice, a hint of fear.
His kid was scared, his kid thought that he was going to die, and there was nothing Jin Zixuan hated more than that.
The fact that he’d been allowed to live wasn’t lost on him. The fact that everyone died, while he watched them. Initially, he thought it was Wei Wuxian, who didn’t want to leave A-Li without a husband. He’d thought that A-Ling would be safe, for Wei Wuxian loved him.
But now….
The Burial Mounds had left him alive to see him suffer. They held no love for him, and even less love for A-Ling, the child Wei Wuxian never got to meet.
Jin Zixuan looked in the eyes of his son and was so happy he’d eventually learned to swallow his tears.
“I’d love to.”
~O~
He’s never been great friends with Nie Hauisang, but the man doesn’t seem to be holding it against him. Nie Mingjue has yet to have an heir, so his former classmate’s only worry is finding a spouse in time.
Jin Zixuan wishes he could envy him, wishes he could spite him, could feel any strong emotion other than the earth shattering anxiety with every grain fallen from the hourglass.
But he can’t. He can only be happy someone walked out of his war unscathed.
Nie Hauisang gets the paper fast, faster than anyone save for A-Yao would’ve. They’re not originals, but the writing is neat, the drawings clear and the paper resistant. He can recognise the same steady hand he sees on the hand painted fans.
Nie Hauisang hugs him, although they’ve never been friends. It’s been so long since Jin ZIxuan hugged someone he knew they’d die sooner or later.
~O~
Wei Ying had died in undyed hemp and a straw bed. He died to bloody bandages and fifty faces crying over him, vision blurry from either pain or tears.
Wei Ying wakes alone, wrapped in colourful silk, to a sunny day. He wakes to fruits on the table and a pair of dark robes, much like his own before the war came, laid out before him.
He wakes to a body stronger than he’d had in years, to a golden core so strong so bright it’s basically ripping at the seams of his being, to hands rough from sword practice never stopped and drapes that hold the scent of mourning.
I’m alive? I survived?
Chenqing is on the table, over some very fine paper. His bare hands scrape on the dried blood when he climbs down from the bed, and his muscles ache with morning soreness when he steps, for what feels like the first time in too long, without his breath hitching and his lungs ripping from too much air and too many holes to keep it in.
I’m sorry, I never thought they’d kill you….. the letter starts and Wei Ying feels his brand new knees give up under him. The gaudy silk cushion is there to break his fall.
The letter details the happenings of the past fifteen years. The people who died, the lives of his relatives, the fate of the Wens. The paper is wrinkled in some places, like the peacock cried while writing it, and Wei Ying can’t bring himself to make fun of him for it.
The letter ends quicker than it has any right to.
I don’t care about anyone else, please, just save A-Ling.
Wei Ying lets it slip through his fingers and allows himself a second to scream about all the misfortune he brought into the world.
~O~
Wen Ning can feel the shift in the world, can feel the blip in the energy, in the normal script of fate. The bowl in his hands slips and crashes onto the floor, spilling oil all over the wood, and he can’t bring himself to care about it.
JieJie is worried, she’s scolding him, and Wen Ning wishes more than ever that he could cry.
~O~
It takes three days for him to get there. Suiha doesn’t like him, doesn’t like him at all, but she recognises Zixuan’s core and is only mildly annoying. Lotus Pier looks wonderful, looks just like it looked before the Wens destroyed it, but there are new additions.
Additions he often heard granny talk about, when she pet his hair and he dared to dream they’d build a life on their corpse mountain.
He first sees Jiang Cheng, huffing and puffing in anger, Sandu clenched between his fingers.
“You dare?!” he snarls, stepping closer “You dare show your face here…..”
He can’t finish, not when there’s yelps and shrieks and A-Ning dashes through Lotus Pier. Not when A-Ning stops a few steps in front of him, face broken in a smile that almost looks human.
Not when A-Ning says, in the closest he can to a cry of joy “Young master Wei!” before the unparalleled strength of the Ghost General envelops him and holds him strong enough he can feel his spine crack.
He lifts arms that aren’t his own, with a health he oh so missed and hugs the other back. Tears stain the blue and purple robes, but, by the tears in A-Cheng’s eyes, he doesn’t seem to care.