Chapter Text
When everything is overturning
There's no thing that I won't go through
Even if I have to die for you
The cool mountain air rushes past Lan Sizhui, and the verdant green of the mountains around Gusu spill like an emerald carpet under his feet. He looks to his left where Lan Jingyi flies on his sword. With his hair flung back by the wind, his strong jaw and high cheekbones are exposed to Sizhui’s admiration. As the sun sinks lower in the sky, the colors of the sunset paint a vibrant backdrop for his elegant, white-clothed form, and his lashes cast long shadows over jade perfect skin.
“Sizhui?” Jingyi’s voice breaks his reverie, and he fights a blush down from his cheeks at being caught staring.
“Yes?” He calls over the sound of the wind.
“How much longer do we have to fly?” His voice is just shy of whining, and Sizhui smiles a bit at it.
“Not too long now.”
Jingyi grumbles something under his breath, but the whistling wind steals the sound away.
“Come now,” Sizhui says, “don’t be so temperamental. We’ve barely been flying for two hours. You’re getting as bad as Jin Ling.”
“I,” Jingyi flounders for a moment, “I am not! How dare you compare me to the Young Mistress.”
Sizhui laughs at the disgruntled look on Jingyi’s face, but he quickly sobers himself. A night hunt is not the appropriate time for laughing and joking.
“The valley is just there,” he points ahead of them to a valley not too far in the distance.
Sizhui looks over his shoulder at the other cultivators behind them. The eight of them fly in a group a little bit back from Sizhui and Jingyi. If they are annoyed by Sizhui and Jingyi joking around on a night hunt, they hide it well.
The rest of the trip is made in silence. It’s dark by the time they land, even though from the air they can see that the sun hasn’t completely set yet. Night always falls early in the mountains.
“Several caravans have gone missing here,” Sizhui says to the group. Jingyi has moved so that he’s standing more-or-less with the group and facing Sizhui, who is supposed to be in charge. “Whatever is hunting here seems quite dangerous. We need to be cautious.”
He notices that Jingyi is frowning down at his compass of evil and not paying attention. Instead of rebuking him, which is really pointless, he asks: “What is it?”
“The compass isn’t settling in any one direction.”
Lan Mingyi frowns, “With something strong enough to take out merchant caravans around, it shouldn’t have trouble locating it.”
“Back on Dafan mountain, it didn’t work either,” Chen Shenzhi points out.
“That’s because that was a god,” Jingyi says growing a bit pale. “I really hope that’s not what we’re dealing with now. Senior Wen isn’t here to help.”
Several of the disciples look disgruntled at the reminder that Wen Ning had saved them all at Dafan Mountain.
“It’s more likely that it is from the resentful energy of the victims. There may well be walking corpses to deal with.” Sizhui says, and Jingyi visibly relaxes; walking corpses are something he knows how to deal with. Sizhui continues, “We’ll need to split up to search for it, but no one should engage it alone. We’ll go in pairs. If you see it, signal for back up and wait until we all get to you. Understood?”
“Yes.” Everyone except for Jingyi speaks together. Jingyi just nods at him. Sizhui gives him a pointed look but doesn’t take the time to reprimand him right then.
“Does everyone have a signal flare in case of emergencies?” Sizhui waits for them all to check. They’ve been much more careful about stocking signal flares in the years following the Mo Manor, Dafan Mountain, and Yi City incidents.
“As I said, we’ll break into five groups. One group will follow the road and the other four will go into the forest on each side.”
Jingyi moves to his side in an instant, and Sizhui waits a few more moments for the others to break up into pairs. Then he directs them in different directions. The two youngest, who are really only two years behind Sizhui and Jingyi, he sends along the road which he deems to be the easiest and least dangerous path.
The four other groups melt almost soundlessly into the woods. Gusu Lan Sect discipline and training serving them well. Jingyi and Sizhui move into the woods to the right and move in the direction back towards Gusu. There’s no need for them to communicate their moves; they move and react to each other with the ease of years as night hunting partners. Sizhui loves these moments despite the danger. He enjoys how in-sync he feels with Jingyi as if they are two parts of one whole instead of two different people.
The soft fall of their footsteps and the quiet sounds of their breathing meld with the normal sounds of the forest: leaves rustling, owls hooting, insects buzzing, and a myriad of other gentle sounds. Sizhui listens with a practiced ear for anything unusual.
It’s not long before they hear the sound of a low moan. They draw their swords almost in unison and adjust their path to go towards the sound. Soon the sound of heavy footsteps, crunching underbrush, and snapping branches reaches them. The steps have the slow and awkward cadence of a corpse. They can tell now that there is only one corpse, and they rush towards it together. With a swing, Sizhui takes off its head, and Jingyi cleaves it in two just below the waist. The body falls to the ground, and it’s resentful energy isn’t nearly strong enough to pull it back together, which is good because they don’t have time to properly bury it. Instead, they separate the pieces and place four talismans around each to bind the relentless energy and ensure that the corpse doesn't get up again.
“It looks like the spine was snapped,” Jingyi says quietly kneeling beside the severed torso.
“I didn’t see any signs of blade wounds, so I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t bandits that did this.”
“Definitely.”
Jingyi pulls out his compass of evil while Sizhui double-checks the talismans around the corpse. The needle on the compass is still swinging, but it’s swinging between east and west in the northern direction, so they adjust their path slightly before setting off. The woods get darker as they move until true night has fallen. And even though Jingyi is only a few feet away from Sizhui, he is painted in shadows. It’s hard to gauge how much time has passed with the trees blocking the view of the sky, but Sizhui’s starting to think they should begin to backtrack when Jingyi halts and motions for his attention.
He doesn’t have to make it all the way to Jingyi’s side to see what his friend is showing him. There’s a large, deep groove in the underbrush that reminds him of a snake track, except much, much bigger. Kneeling, Sizhui measures it with his arm. He exchanges an anxious look with Jingyi. If this was left by a snake, the body is probably at least as wide as Sizhui is tall. While Sizhui studies the track, Jingyi examines the foliage. When Sizhui gets to his feet they both point in the same direction: back towards the road.
There’s a moment of silent give and take as they decide what to do. Should they both stay on the same side of the track or should they each take a side? After deciding to stick together, they begin to follow the trail. Jingyi moves several feet ahead of him to scout in the darkness, while Sizhui watches the back. The creature may have gone this way earlier, but there’s no rule saying that it couldn’t have circled around.
They’d been following the trail of the beast for close to an hour, as best Sizhui can tell, when he feels a reaction from one of the talismans in his sleeve. Pulling it out, he watches as it ignites. With two fingers, he throws it in front of him and the burning talisman points ahead of them in the same direction as the track.
They exchange a single glance, and then they move faster, but they still don’t run. Sizhui stops keeping time as they rush forward as quietly as they can. Their breathing joins the louder sounds of twigs snapping and leaves crunching underneath, and he focuses on the sounds ahead of them. At some point, they cross the road and enter the woods on the other side. The moon is only a crescent in the sky and the dappled starlight makes it difficult to see the treacherous ground under their feet. As they go, Jingyi stays by his side, even though he could easily outpace Sizhui.
They hear the scream before they see any sign of beast or man. The sound is like ice going down his spine; it’s a scream of pain and not of fear. With a single glance at each other, both he and Jingyi break into a run and their swords slide partway out of their sheaths, ready to be wielded. The forest is unnaturally silent in the wake of the scream, and Sizhui can hear his heart is hammering much harder than the brief sprint warrants. Branches catch on their clothes and scratch their skin as they rush through the woods, but Sizhui hardly notices the sting.
The trees around them are rapidly growing thinner and in unison, they skid to a stop. There must be a clearing ahead; a creature as large as the one making the trail they found would need room to fight. Jingyi slides his sword free and moves on silent feet closer to the clearing. Instead of drawing his sword, Sizhui retrieves his guqin as he approaches.
Despite themselves, they freeze when they see into the clearing. A snake almost twice as wide as a man is tall and white as bone is coiled up before them. Under his tail is the broken looking body of a Lan disciple. His partner is lying against a tree with his limbs splayed unnaturally rather like a doll tossed aside by an angry child. Sizhui can’t tell if he’s still breathing, but he doubts it. There’s no point in rushing in anymore, so he signals for Jingyi to hold. Fear flashes across Jingyi’s face, but he grits his jaw in determination. Sizhui rests a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Sizhui looks around, where are the others? Based on their search pattern, Jingyi and he should have been last or second to last to arrive. He searches the shadows around the clearing until he locates another pair of cultivators by the glint of moonlight on steel. It’s too dark for them to coordinate by signals, but the other cultivators are well-trained to think on their feet. He’ll have to trust their instincts.
With a motion from Sizhui, Jingyi enters the clearing with a flash of white silk and steel. Four other disciples enter the clearing at different points. Three hold swords in their hands and one with his xiao held up. Stepping all the way into the clearing, Sizhui signals to him before setting his hands to his guqin strings.
Jingyi darts to the left, away from the other cultivators as the snake finally notices them. It sways its massive head from side to side and its tongue flicks out to taste the air. As it turns its massive head in Sizhui’s direction, Sizhui catches sight of its horrible pink-red eyes.
“It’s blind!” He calls out. When the snake doesn’t turn towards him, he glances over at Lan Mingyi who has his xiao to his lips. Together they play Rest hoping to lull the storm of resentful energy inside the beast . The soothing melody drifts through the clearing as the guqin and the flute play in perfect harmony. The sweet music, gentle as a lullaby, is entirely at odds with the flashing swords of four cultivators descending on the beast. A horrible grating sound like steel on stone cuts across the drifting melody as one disciple slices across the scales of the beast. An instant later that’s followed by two sharp clangs when Jingyi and Chen Shenzhi strike against the unnaturally hard scales.
The attacks seem to enliven the snake, who strikes out at Chen Shenzhi. He narrowly avoids the open maw and flashing fangs. A shiver goes through Sizhui; this beast, whatever it is, is fast, faster than Sizhui’s eye can follow. A second flash of white is all the warning there is and less than a second later, the snake has Chen Shenzhi twisted in its coils.
There’s a sharp break in the flute music as the xiao player lets out a gasp. But the guqin’s mellow voice continues regardless of Sizhui’s shock. The gentle melody floats in the air around them, an almost ironic counterpoint to the fight.
Bright red blooms across Chen Shenzhi’s robes, but Sizhui can see that he’s still moving, still fighting, and trying to get a good angle with his sword so that he can strike the beast. Jingyi rushes towards the snake, aiming for the exposed belly scoots in a hope they will be more yielding than the back scales, and as fear tries to seize him, Sizhui forces his gaze down to his guqin and his shaking hands.
Rest is having no effect on the snake or the resentful energy that surrounds and suffuses it. He doesn’t know why, but that doesn’t matter. He can worry it out later; if they survive. They need something else and the only thing he can think of is the Sound of Vanquishing.
There are the crack and crunch of bones breaking followed by a horrible quiet where there should have been a scream, and Sizhui knows that Chen Shenzhi is dead.
He turns to Lan Mingyi, who’s recovered enough to return to his song, as he stills his hands on the strings. The flute music stops only a note or two after the guqin. Sizhui shakes his head: it’s not working. His companion gives a single nod before stowing his xiao and drawing his sword. With a frown creasing his brow, Sizhui turns back to his guqin; it would be better if they played Sound of Vanquishing together, but Lan Mingyi hasn’t mastered it yet.
Taking a steadying breath, Sizhui closes his eyes. He focuses on gathering his spiritual energy, but it's hard to block out the sounds around him; he can hear his fellow disciples fighting, and it tempts him to look. But, he needs to focus. Years of Gusu Lan sect discipline and training come to his aid, and after a few breaths, his surroundings fade to the back of his mind.
Opening his eyes, Sizhui places his hands carefully above the strings, continuing to gather up as much of his spiritual power as he can. There’s another pained cry, and it takes every ounce of Sizhui’s hard-earned discipline not to look.
Unlike Rest, which is a song that allows you to pour energy in as you go, Sound of Vanquishing requires you to release all the energy at once with the chord. This makes it much harder to master. If he was facing a fierce corpse or even a handful of them, Sizhui could attack after a moment or two of focus. But he’s never faced anything quite like this monster, and he doubts it’ll go down easily.
His hands are starting to glow blue where he holds them above the guqin strings, and he’ll have to play soon or the energy will dissipate. Turning his eyes up, at last, he focuses on the snake. Not just on the bleached-bone white of its scales, but on its distinct spiritual energy, which is dark and twisted with resentment. With a single, well-practiced motion of his hands, he directs his energy into the attack on the giant white beast. A sound reminiscent of the cold winter wind across the mountain peak echoes unnaturally loudly in the clearing accompanied by a flash of blue light.
The four disciples still fighting blink as the flash of spiritual energy flooding out of Sizhui temporarily blinds them. The chord hangs in the air around them, and for an instant, everything is frozen.
The sudden expenditure of energy leaves Sizhui dizzy, but his eyes automatically move to Jingyi, who is blessedly still standing. Sizhui’s head is spinning, but he can see that Jingyi’s expression is about to break into a smile in response to the attack, which was perfectly played and more powerful than any that Sizhui had done before.
The moment is broken, not by the sound of a brain exploding or a body thudding to the ground, but by a sibilant hiss.
No.
The last two disciples rush into the clearing, but as they clear the line of trees, they freeze. Their wide eyes move from the broken bodies of their friends scattered around the clearing to the snake that's larger than it has any right to be.
“The flare!” Jingyi yells to the newcomers. Years of discipline take effect, and they automatically obey. One of them scrambles in his robes until he manages to get it out and light it with a talisman.
The snake strikes even as sparks shoot into the air above them, and its victim doesn’t have time to get his sword properly up. But the sword still sinks into the snake's mouth as the jaws snap shut around his legs. The white light of the signal flare illuminates the scene as, instead of wrapping the disciple up, the snake jerks in pain and flings its captive across the clearing. There’s a thud as the disciple slams into a tree and falls twenty feet to the ground. He doesn’t get up again.
Panic is threatening to take over Sizhui. The snake’s scales are making attacks with their swords ineffective even though the swords are quality spiritual weapons. Even when they pour their own spiritual energy into the attacks, the swords do no damage to the beast.
Sound of Vanquishing was their best hope, and Sizhui failed. He has to try again. Even though his head is still swimming a bit, he determinedly lowers his hands to guqin strings and starts to draw on his spiritual energy again.
Doubt fills him no matter how hard he tries to push it away. He’s not sure how much more energy he can put into his attack; he thought he’d given the previous attack his best. It seems very likely that he’s not strong enough to kill this thing. And what will they do then?
Perhaps they should retreat. Would they even be able to? The creature is incredibly fast; there’s no guarantee they’d be safe even if they ran for it. Certainly, the caravans it devoured hadn’t been able to run.
Focus, Sizhui. Fear is useless. Anger is useless. What he needs is calm. So he forces his breaths to even out as he pulls and pulls on his spiritual energy. There are a thwack and a cry, and Sizhui’s heart jerks in fear. Jingyi.
But Sizhui can’t think about that now. He’s no use to any of them if he lets fear distract him.
“You two,” Jingyi’s talking now. He’s okay. Relief, rapidly followed by guilt, sweeps through Sizhui. “I’m going to fly up if it follows me, see if there’s a weakness on its belly.”
Jingyi is going to use himself as bait, and the thought has fear clawing its way up Sizhui’s throat. He almost loses his grasp on his spiritual energy.
Focus, Sizhui. Calm, he needs to be calm, like snow falling around the Jingshi. Breathing in and breathing out. He pictures the cold springs in his mind. The world rushes around him, but he will remain unchanged. His spiritual energy flows like a river through his meridians. With each breath, the river rushes harder and faster. He’s nothing but a vessel for the energy.
His hands tremble above the guqin strings, but he doesn’t move. There’s more energy circling through him than he’s ever tried to direct at one time. But he keeps pulling. The sounds of swords on scales and people crying out and bones cracking are distant now. Turning his eyes up to the snake, he sees that it’s wrapped around another disciple. His own feelings of shock and fear are buried under the rush of energy beneath his skin.
Sizhui knows this is his last chance. If this doesn’t kill the snake; he can’t do it. There’s no way he has enough spiritual energy to do this again. Sizhui says a prayer to the gods and the immortals and his ancestors, and then he strikes the chord. Energy pours out of Sizhui like a waterfall and collides with the beast.
Sizhui doesn’t see this though because his vision goes black and his body sways. The sound Jingyi shouting his name is the first thing he notices as he claws his way back to the present. Blinking the darkness away, the clearing comes into focus. The snake is still moving. Dread and something like hopelessness seize him. They’re going to die here.
With a growl, Sizhui pushes the thoughts away and takes a steadying breath; he’s lightheaded from the rapid draining of spiritual energy. There are only three disciples still standing in front of him. The snake’s head is swaying, and its tongue is flickering. Sizhui realizes that there’s a sword embedded in one of its eyes. Jingyi is in the air above it, shouting, but it doesn’t seem to notice.
It’s deaf. The realization hits Sizhui as the snake hits two disciples on the ground with its tail. One of them slams into a tree with a sickening crunch. The other is flung along the ground and skids until he smacks into a different tree; his neck is at the wrong angle.
Sizhui is desperately trying to come up with a solution that gets them out of here. But he’s dizzy, and the resentful energy of the beast and the freshly dead corpses is pressing on him. An idea hits him. A horrible, desperate idea.
Jingyi lands on top of the snake’s head, and Sizhui’s heart nearly stops in fright. Jingyi buries his sword to the hilt in the snake’s eye. The snake thrashes and thrashes until Jingyi is flung away.
Still standing at the edge of the clearing, Sizhui is digging through his memories of Dafan mountain, Yi-City, and the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds. He remembers Wen Ning fighting the goddess statue when a whole team of cultivators had failed. He remembers the corpses, the corpses of his family, that had defended them on the Burial Mounds. His hands shake; if he does this, there is no going back.
Jingyi gets up and his sword flies back into his hand. He has the snake’s attention now. In that moment, Sizhui knows that if he doesn’t do something, Jingyi is going to die. His entire being cries out against that. It’s not a choice anymore, not really.
Sizhui clearly remembers the sound of Wei Wuxian’s flute on Dafan Mountain. His hands are oddly steady on his guqin as he reaches out for the resentful energy filling the clearing. He pulls on it, the way he had previously pulled on his own spiritual energy. But the resentful energy doesn’t flow, it thrashes. Luckily, Sizhui’s almost out of spiritual energy and there’s plenty of room for the energy to rage.
Sizhui’s fingers pluck the guqin strings. His jaw is set so hard his teeth are creaking.
Revenge.
Don’t you want revenge, Sizhui-xiong?
Why? Why did I have to die?
Revenge.
Why?
He can hear the voices of his fellow disciples rising like a cacophony around him. Sizhui has never felt so much anger, so much pain.
“Sizhui what on earth are you doing?” Jingyi screams, but Sizhui doesn’t stop.
The snake seems to realize that something is happening. It must be able to sense resentful energy because it turns away from Jingyi. Sizhui would feel relieved if he wasn’t trying to grasp the kicking, trashing resentful energy.
He realizes that he needs to redirect the energy, not fight it. There’s so much hate that he can’t hold it. But he can give it a place to go.
I’ll give you revenge. Sizhui tells the voices. His hands move across the strings playing something harsh and frantic. It’s right there. The beast that did this to you.
The corpses begin to rise from the ground. Having so recently died, they would look like live cultivators if it weren’t for the jerky nature of their movements and the wounds. One of them gets up and his head is halfway turned around.
“Sizhui!” Jingyi screams, and he sounds afraid. Sizhui doesn’t blame him. He’s seen corpses many, many times but this is worse, so much worse. Chen Shenzhi is dragging himself by his arms because the snake’s bite shattered his hip bone and his spine.
Sizhui stores his guqin as the corpses approach the snake. As he draws his sword, the whole blade trembles.
“Sizhui what did you do?” Sizhui doesn’t recognize the emotion in Jingyi’s voice. Confusion? Fear? Desperation? All of those and yet not exactly. Whatever it is, it’s a matter for later.
“I,” he can’t look Jingyi in the eyes so he keeps his gaze on the snake. He doesn’t want to see fear there or worse hate. At least Jingyi is alive to hate him. “We still have to kill it.”
Jingyi looks from Sizhui to the corpses to the snake. He clearly wants to grab Sizhui and demand to know what the hell is going on, but he knows that Sizhui’s right.
“How?” Jingyi demands.
The corpses are grasping at the snake. A few seem to be trying to pull the scales off one by one. Two are wrestling with the head of the beast. The snake is thrashing and it hits one of the corpses and sends it flying. Bones crack as the corpse lands, but it gets back up again. Sizhui looks away, the sight of his fellow disciples so horribly mangled makes him ill. His mental voice is screaming: you did this, you did this, you did this.
He won’t blame Jingyi if Jingyi hates him after this. He’ll probably hate himself. There’ll be nightmares about Lan Mingyi walking around with his face smashed in and parts of his brain coming out.
“The mouth,” Sizhui says.
“What?” Jingyi frowns at him, and it’s obvious that he thinks Sizhui has lost his mind. Maybe he has.
“The only soft places on the snake are its eyes and its mouth.” Sizhui clarifies. He looks at Jingyi because the sight of his former classmates as corpses is turning his stomach. “You put your sword in the eye up to the hilt, and it didn’t kill it. So I don’t think that will work. That leaves the mouth.”
“Like what Senior Wei did with Xuánwǔ the Slaughter?”
“Yes.” Sizhui takes a deep breath. “One of us will need to hold the mouth open and one of us will have to go in and kill it from the inside.”
“I’ll go inside,” Jingyi says immediately.
Sizhui shakes his head. “You’re stronger than I am, you have a better chance of keeping the mouth open.”
Jingyi is shaking his head before Sizhui has even finished talking. “It’s too-”
“Don’t tell me it’s too dangerous and then insist on doing it yourself,” Sizhui says more sharply than he means to, and Jingyi pulls back.
“I, Sizhui, I didn’t mean.”
“I know.” Sizhui’s breath is shaky as he tries to steady himself with a deep breath. His gaze moves to the fight between the corpses and the snake. “If anyone should die because of this, it should be me.”
“Sizhui!”
“Let’s go, Jingyi. The corpses won’t last forever.”
“Sizhui!”
Sizhui keeps walking towards the snake. Two of the corpses have wrestled the snake’s head to the ground and Sizhui wonders if he somehow directed them to do this. Eventually, Jingyi jogs to catch up to him. His face is set in a frown.
Sizhui’s heart pounds faster and faster as they get close to the snake’s face. If the snake breaks free of the corpses, both of them will be dead in less than a second. The snake hisses at them, and they both burst into action. They wedge themselves in the gap between the snake's upper and lower jaw. It flicks its tongue against Sizhui, and he shudders but doesn’t move away. The snake's first row of teeth is only inches away from his shoulder, and he tries not to think about it as they force the snake's mouth open.
It reeks. The smell is almost enough to make Sizhui’s eyes water, and he’s sure it’s not going to get any better once he gets further into the snake’s mouth. Sizhui stares at the rows of teeth exposed by their action. He’s gone past fear and back to calm.
Beside him, Jingyi is wiggling around to get into a better position. “Okay,” he says, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Sizhui nods and draws his sword. He ducks down so that the snake’s bite is no longer pressing down on him and takes a few steps. He hears Jingyi grunt as the weight that Sizhui had been holding is transferred to him, but the jaws don’t snap shut around them.
Glancing behind him, Sizhui pauses. There are a million things that he wants to say right now, but none of them seem right.
“A-Yuan,” Jingyi says and his voice is slightly strained. “If you die, I’m going to have Senior Wei bring you back so that I can kill you myself.”
A surprised laugh escapes Sizhui despite the situation. Despite what Sizhui has done, Jingyi still calls him A-Yuan. His heart softens and hopes blooms in his chest; somehow, Jingyi always makes things better. “I’ll be back as fast as I can, A-Yi. I promise.”
The snake is huge, but Sizhui still his to duck down to move down its throat. He can feel the way the snake is trashing and if he reaches out, he can feel the muscles tensing. A shiver runs down his spine and he moves faster. He’s not entirely sure how far down a snake’s heart actually is, but he doesn’t want to start slicing too soon. It’s sure to start thrashing when he does, and that will make Jingyi’s job, and his, much more difficult.
The smell, as he predicted, gets worse as he goes. After several yards, he stops to pull his robes over his nose. Several steps later, Sizhui senses the snake moving and freezes. An instant later, he’s being pressed on all sides by the wet, slimy walls of the snake’s throat. He gags. Sizhui’s lungs start to burn as the snake presses hard enough to restrict his breathing. He can’t move his arms, so he propels his sword forward his spiritual energy. Luckily, he has enough left for that.
The sword slices easily into the flesh and the snake instantly stops trying to swallow him, but blood sprays all over Sizhui. Using the opportunity, Sizhui rushes forward and directs his sword before him. Soon he notices that to his left the snake’s flesh heaves rhythmically, so he stops. He must be near either the lungs or the heart. With a single steadying breath, Sizhui grips his sword in his hands and attacks. The blade slices, the snake jerks, and blood sprays. He keeps up his attack. There’s no way one slice is going to do it, so he keeps attacking the same place.
The snake is jerking and writhing, trying to stop him. He stumbles and loses his footing, but gets back up and redoubles his efforts. Blood is flowing around his feet and covering his hands and arms. The cut becomes large enough that he can step into it. He keeps swinging.
Sizhui knows the moment that his blade slices into the heart because there is suddenly so much more blood. It bubbles up and flows like a fountain around him. The snake is thrashing even harder now and Sizhui falls into the river of blood. He buries his sword in the snake’s flash and holds on for dear life. Everything is red. The snake has to be dying; it has to be.
He’s not sure how long it takes before the thrashing stops, but it does stop eventually. His arms shake as he pulls his sword free. He’s tired; he’s so tired. But he still has to get out of here. So he pushes himself step by step back out of the snake. His whole body sags with relief when he sees the open mouth and Jingyi standing there. He looks much less strained now that the snake isn’t actively trying to crush him.
“Jingyi,” Sizhui says and Jingyi’s head snaps around so fast that his neck must hurt.
“Sizhui, you’re oka- gods above you look horrible.”
“Not my blood,” Sizhui stumbles out of the snake’s mouth onto the grass. Jingyi steps out and the snake’s mouth falls closed behind them. “Gods, I’m so tired.”
Jingyi reaches out and rubs Sizhui’s shoulders, Sizhui shrugs him off. “I’m disgusting, don’t touch me.”
“I don’t mind,” Jingyi says. He’s lying and they both know it, but he still puts his arm around Sizhui’s shoulders anyway.
The moan of a corpse reaches his ears, and Sizhui groans.
“Can you play Rest ?” Jingyi asks. Sizhui nods even though he’s not actually sure he’ll manage.
Sizhui forces himself into an upright position as he gets out his guqin. His fingers fumble as he plays and the strings are quickly bloody from contact with his hands. It takes several tries before he manages to play the opening chords of rest properly, but from there his muscle memory takes over. He’s grateful for Hanguang-jun’s strict training and the thousands of times he’s played this before because if he had to put even an ounce of thought into playing, he wouldn’t be able to do it. Exhaustion is making his body tremble, and he’s sitting upright only because Jingyi is bearing most of his weight.
The chords echo through the clearing and the corpses slowly collapse back to the ground. Thank you , Sizhui thinks as he plays because, without them, Jingyi would be dead and Sizhui too. I’m sorry , he thinks next because he disturbed their rest for his own desires. He keeps playing even after the corpses have all settled to the ground hoping, in some small way, to pay back the spirits he had used by sending them to rest.
Eventually, Jingyi covers Sizhui’s hands with his own. Only then does Sizhui cease his playing.
“Enough,” Jingyi says, “you’re exhausted.”
Sizhui can’t find it in him to deny it; instead, he sags into Jingyi’s arms.
“Let’s rest,” Jingyi says. He holds Sizhui against him. “We’re in no shape to fly back to the Cloud Recesses right now.”
“The others will come,” Sizhui reminds him, “Someone set off a flare.”
Jingyi frowns and looks around the clearing. The bodies of the disciples are clustered around the dead beast. It’s a grisly sight. The bodies are mangled beyond what a living human could have withstood. Even without the strange energy in the clearing, any cultivator would be able to tell that they had been resurrected as fierce corpses. If Lan disciples find them here, there will be no way to explain it.
“Sizhui,” Jingyi says and his voice is filled with worry. “Maybe we should move.”
Sizhui shakes his head.
“They’re going to know what happened.”
“I know,” Sizhui’s voice breaks despite himself. He’s not sure if it's guilt or fear or exhaustion at this point.
“Sizhui,” Jingyi tries again.
“It’s alright,” Sizhui tries his best to be comforting. Whatever the punishment is, he’ll take it.