Chapter Text
— You can't.
Wei Wuxian sighed and glanced sideways at the guard at the Cloud Recesses gate. The man pursed his lips in confusion and shrugged his shoulders.
— Well, you can't enter Cloud Recesses without a pass.
— Look... — Jiang Cheng began. The guard interrupted him.
— I'm not the one who makes the rules! The passes are enchanted, the barrier wouldn't let you through without them.
So you either had to break the integrity of the protective barrier surrounding the Cloud Recesses or go back to Caii to get the damn passes. Wei Wuxian found the first option more and more attractive. Maybe if we went somewhere in the middle of nowhere... They have no bad intentions. There is always a way to repent before the sect leadership. Just as he turned to gesture for Jiang Cheng and the others to step aside, a sentry called out to someone in the distance:
— Second young Master Lan!
Oh, young Lan Wanji's fame as a role model carved in jade was by no means exaggerated. Wei Wuxian had not seen many mountains in his life, but he compared the newcomer to the cold, unattainable, armor— encrusted mountaintop of eternal ice.
Well, maybe there is a warm, human heart underneath that jade ice armor? After all, can the second young master Lan forgive such a minor oversight and let the desperate, tired, deadly hungry...?
— You can't,— the icicle from his thin lips shot straight to his skull.
— Why should we go all the way back to Caii?
— You can't enter the Cloud Recesses without a pass,— he just said a few words, but not in a friendly way.
Wei Wuxian filled his chest with air. Now he was going to explain to that unattainable gentleman in white what understanding and mutual assistance were. He knows how to cajole the merchants even in the main market of Yunmeng and get the price down to almost the cost price — he will be able to overcome this jade peak! Jiang Cheng noticed the characteristic reception and twitched to stop Wei Wuxian's tirade.
However, the fight he wanted to prevent didn't start at all. Wei Wuxian's attention was drawn to the small procession following Lan Wangji. Four young men from the Gusu Lan clan were carrying a stretcher with their classmate, who, judging by the white ribbon on his forehead, was covered with a light veil. The veil was stained with blood in several places, the wounded man's moaning was barely audible, and the pale color of his sweaty face made Wei Wuxian feel very uneasy. He could feel the painful qi all too clearly, and the hairs on his skin stood on end. No matter what happened to this guy, he was in dire need of help.
— What happened to him?
— Stand back, young master,— one of the porters said impatiently. — We have to hurry to the healers.
— One is already here, — Wei Wuxian held his hands out to his sides and immediately reached into his sleeve to pull out a bag of Qiankun. — If you drag him up the mountain like this, he'll definitely fall on the way. Put the stretcher down.
— Young master, this is no time to play games!
— A-Xian is really trained as a healer, he can help, — Jiang Yanli intervened as she struggled to look at the sick man's body.
The rest of the group from Yunmeng nodded and muttered in agreement with her words.
— Let's hurry, he urgently needs help! — Wei Wuxian insisted, patting the ground next to the unfolded bag full of various tools and first aid pendants. — Some of you go get your healers, I'm not a wizard.
The porters looked over Wei Wuxian's head — at Lan Wangji, of course. Was it worth taking orders from a complete stranger? Wei Ying felt him nod his back — the cultivators obeyed him immediately. The stretcher was lowered to the ground, causing a barely perceptible painful reaction on the injured man's face. Two of them hurried off to the cloud crevices, while the other two stayed behind to pull back the veil from their comrade. The girls gasped, while Jiang Yanli squeezed Jiang Cheng's hand and anxiously watched Wei Ying's actions.
The injured man's clothes were badly damaged, exposing areas of abraded skin as if he had been dragged along the ground at full speed. Immediately, Wei Wuxian saw something that made his tongue swirl with the strongest of curses. A hip! The unfortunate man clearly had a broken femur, and damn it, no one even thought to put a splint on it, let alone alleviate the pain. How long had they been dragging that poor guy around like that?
— Is he a cultivator?
— Yes, — Jiang Cheng clearly saw Wei Ying's eyebrow twitch.
Even cultivators often overestimated the capabilities of the Golden Core — they weren't threatened by infections, they weren't poisoned, and their injuries healed instantly. If this could be counted to various scratches and bruises, then a broken femur did not look like an injury that would heal itself in a few days.
With a mental scolding, Wei Ying began to check his pulse — weak and frequent, as one would expect in such a situation.
— What had happened to him? — He turned to his bag and pulled out a specially treated cow bladder filled with a slightly salty water solution — it could replace some of the blood. Activating a spiritual power spell on the surface of the bladder, Wei Ying placed it on the bare part of his elbow on the side of his healthy thigh. The bubble gradually began to shrink, releasing the vital solution into the vessels. The superficial wounds were extensive, but the blood was already coagulating, and Wei Wuxian considered them nonthreatening in terms of blood loss. A fracture was another matter, considering how he was being dragged.
The remaining cultivators crumpled up and looked over, unwilling to react. Lan Wangji's gaze was enough for them to get it out:
— He was in a sword race and lost control. He tried to jump off, but his clothes got caught on his handguard, and he was still dragged along the ground.
— Then a tree got in the way, and there he was.
Wei Wuxian took out a bag of acupuncture needles and lifted the injured man's left arm to determine his individual needle length. Once he knew what he needed, he inserted three needles to numb the unfortunate man. He also stuck a needle in the middle of his forehead — no one would want the poor man to start twitching and trying to escape.
— Yes, there are mountains and forests in Gusu, it's hard to travel through the lowlands, — he replied to Lan's disciples with a cheerful voice. — In Yunmeng, there is water wherever you look!
— You don't like running into water at full speed either. Have you forgotten how you beat your stomach? — Jiang Cheng snorted.
— I will not remind you which part of your body you hurt back then," Wei Wuxian retorted, placing his hands on his broken thigh. The swelling was certainly noticeable, and some of the vessels inside were bleeding moderately, but that wasn't what bothered Wei Ying. With extremely careful twists of his wrists, he checked the degree of bone displacement. Was there no debris? Sending his own spiritual energy to check, he found that there was. Unfortunately, his femur seemed to have been swung over a tree trunk, so there was a lot of shrapnel, and many of them had already shifted considerably. He had never personally treated such fractures, but he had seen the headaches such patients caused the older students in the hospital wing. Fortunately, he wouldn't have to deal with this one either. Mentally wishing the healers of the Cloud Recesses good luck, Wei Wuxian reached for the light splints. He had no time to reach it when he noticed the pale, visibly blue skin and the paused moans. He grabbed the young man's arm — there was no pulse on his wrist.
Wei Ying's hand flew to the wounded man's neck — the carotid artery barely twitched. The voice of Chief Healer Yunmeng Jiang echoed in his head, saying that splints were no longer necessary for such a deep shock. After mentally going through the symptoms, he put his ear to the injured man's chest — his heart didn't promise to last long either — and said
— Jiang Cheng, over here.
— What is it now? — Jiang Cheng reluctantly replied.
— He has already lost a lot of blood, and there is a danger that more will be lost. The bone fragments are moving further and further away due to the muscle contraction, some of them are dangerous to the femoral artery, — Wei Wuxian babbled at top speed and hastily stuck a series of needles into his thigh, causing it to visibly relax. He took out three more enchanted bullbladders from the bag. — I'll get them back. We've done it before, come on.
Jiang Cheng was not very pleased at the prospect of staining the white robes of his invited disciple, so he sat down with the injured man's head between his legs and pulled him up by his armpits. The bull's bladder had already given up all the solution it contained, so Wei Wuxian replaced it, pressing one against his bare elbows on either side and the other directly against his chest, opposite his heart, and slipping it into Jiang Cheng's hand.
Another helper was needed to gently pull the ankle, but his task was easier than Jiang Cheng's, so Wei Wuxian simply assigned one of Gusu Lan's remaining disciples to that position.
— Don't tug, pull evenly and gently, — Wei Wuxian instructed him, directing the qi into his palms, causing the air around them to visibly vibrate as if over a red-hot frying pan.
— What is all this for?
— Otherwise, he will either die or lose his leg, — Wei Wuxian said in a light tone and, ignoring the stretched faces of the crowd, put his hands on his wounded thigh, closed his eyes and concentrated.
At first there was darkness, filled with the sounds of the outside world, but he separated himself from them, trying to resonate with what was happening just beneath his palms. Pain. Spasm. Bleeding. Torn muscle fibers. Somewhere in the distance, a wounded neck whimpered — fortunately, no vertebrae had been affected, but a dislocation had occurred nonetheless. He would have to alert the healers.
Qi flowed like mercury, outlining every bone fragment in his mind. Wei Wuxian felt the anxious qi of the wounded man, but did not collide with it — it was not what he needed.
"Come here," he invited a large splinter, mentally showing him where it had been until recently. And the next, smaller one. And the next. If you could see through the flesh, you would be surprised to see that the pieces of bone seemed to move on their own. In fact, they were being moved by the wounded man's own muscle power, for of course the limb was striving to be healthy. Another thing is that, without volitional support, the muscles tended to move the pieces away from each other, making it difficult for a splinter fracture to heal. The spiritual power of the healer was their guide and support.
Moving on to the smaller shards, Wei Wuxian mentally checked the larger vessels one by one. Fortunately, this large shard was the most dangerous.
We should look a little deeper to see if everything...
The warning chime of Jiang's bell sounded in his head.
Wei Ying opened his eyes. As usual, after having his spirit tightly confined within his patient body, he saw poorly and was unable to immediately return to reality. The real Bell of Clarity on Jiang Cheng's belt was certainly hanging silently, reflecting the rays of the evening sun. The one he had just heard was a reflection of Jiang Cheng's spiritual energy, standing guard over the excess fusion. Jiang Cheng knew what was expected of him. Raising his torso was just the tip of the iceberg. The violet eyes closely watched the expression on Shixiong's face. He smiled wearily. The repositioning was successful, the splinters were back where they should have been in the first seconds after the injury. He should put splints on them now so that they wouldn't move again, but how hard it is to move one's own physical body after having actually become a spirit for a while.
A hand rested on Wei Ying's shoulder. Gusu Lan's assistant behind him groaned but didn't let go of his ankle. Someone important would have been there, but you have to lift your head to greet him, and that's sooooooo...
Another man's spiritual energy flowed through his body, tingling his meridians with tiny icicles, bringing back clarity of perception and vitality. Wei Wuxian still lifted his head to see a pair of stunning eyes the color of heather honey in front of him. Then a human face, a young man slightly older than him, studied him with excited interest.
— An invited disciple of Yunmeng Jiang, — No doubt, he had the sect's emblem imprinted on his shoulders.
— Wei Wuxian, — he nodded, pleased at how quickly his body control was returning to him.
The young man's hand patted his back, continuing to stimulate his spinal cord — Wei Wuxian was trying to memorize this technique so that he could quickly remove the remnants of merging with another's body.
— Thank you for helping the Gusu Lan Sect, Wei Wuxian. A good level of improvement for your age.
Beside the young man, there were several people whose clothes were different from the apprentice's. The healers approached the wounded man, intercepting the rescue of the severely wounded disciple.
Wei Wuxian tore his hands from the patient and stood up, at the same time alerting his colleagues to the neck injury. They nodded approvingly and went about their business.
Lan Wanji saw the newcomer and bowed to him.
— Xiongzhang.
At that moment, Wei Wuxian already knew who was standing in front of him — the heir of the Gusu Lan Clan himself, Lan Xichen, had descended from the cloud gaps to the foot of the mountains. He bowed to him as he should, just like Jiang Cheng, who had freed himself from his burden, and the entire group of disciples from Yunmeng had done.
— The first Young Master Lan.
He looked around at everyone and invited them to enter the Cloud Recesses, but Lan Wanji shouted again:
— You can't.
In response to his elder brother's questioning look, he explained:
— The invited disciples have forgotten their passes to Caii.
— If it's that important, we can send someone on the sword to fetch them, — Jiang Yanli suggested delicately. Lan Xichen hesitated, but then took out several talismans, activated them with his spiritual power, and threw them into the air — one floating in front of each guest's face.
— Helping worthy people in need is the duty of a noble husband, — Lan Xichen smiled warmly. — The passes are name tags, without disciples they are just pretty things. Outsiders can't use them to enter the Cloud Recesses.
Lan Wangji's face expressed nothing. He calmly bowed to his elder brother and submitted to his decision.
— Come in, disciples of Yunmeng Jiang!
The recently rejected representatives of the Southern Lake Region enthusiastically made their way to the gate. Jiang Cheng was assisted by the still lethargic Wei Wuxian, while Jiang Yanli picked up the mascot passes for the three of them.
The young men entered the thick, cool greenness of the famous forests of the Cloud Recesses.