Several people notice the fog clearing, including Wen Qing. Everyone who notices the cave pauses and stares.

When the other disciples only mumble between one another and it becomes clear that Wen Chao did not notice (of course), Wen Qing clears her throat and points. "Look! Over there, on the mountainside."

He alone sees the talisman fly past.

He waits until Wei Ying returns beside him to speak, voice low and rough with pain. "You knew something was there."

It's a question, but it has the intonation of an accusation.

"Ah, I just... saw something, and wanted to see what it was more clearly!" 

This does not sound entirely like he's telling the truth.

"Wei Ying."

If Wei Ying has already progressed far enough into demonic cultivation that he can sense the resentful energy of a monster that far away --

Wangji doesn't understand. How could Wei Ying have worked on these skills without Wangji noticing? Were there already signs, when they quested for the Yin Iron together? He must have missed something. It makes no sense for Wei Ying to have learned these dangerous skills overnight.

"I saw the outline of something! I'm not lying!"

He did, in fact, see the outline of the cave.  In his last life.

It's very tempting to storm ahead in frustration, but unfortunately if Wangji moves any faster than this his leg is going to shatter.

So he just limps along beside Wei Ying looking deeply unhappy.

He isn't exactly sure why Lan Zhan is so unhappy, but talking about it right now seems like a good way for Lan Zhan to get hit more, so instead he won't do that.  Time to deal with the Xuanwu of Slaughter, then.

It takes another hour of walking uphill to finally reach the cave, just like last time. Like last time, Lan Wangji can't actually make it all the way up the slopes without Wei Wuxian partially propping him up. 

Familiar torches are distributed. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are each handed one and shoved to the front of the group, made to go first. They are not pounced on by any monsters as they wander deeper, but their torches cast light on an increasingly alarming and precarious cliff-edge.

Wangji finally finds the steep downward incline that leads to the rest of the enormous cavern below, like last time. He stops and stares down into the murky darkness.

"I didn't say you could stop," Wen Chao says, noticing that the procession has halted from his place near the center.  He can't hear screaming or monsters yet.  "Disobedient dogs deserve to get beaten."

He steps closer, surrounded by his guard.  Ah, a cliff.  "What are you waiting for?  Get down there!"

"You have the sword, you should lead us! We wouldn't want to encounter a monster unarmed."  He's totally gonna get shoved off a cliff again.

Wangji switches very quickly from glaring at Wen Chao to glaring at Wei Ying because WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP TALKING

"We need light to fight in, and you are holding a torch."

Wei Wuxian is going to get shoved off of a cliff again!

He falls to the bottom of the cliff.  He sits for a moment, the wind slightly knocked out of him, before setting the torch down and stepping out of the lit area to wait.

"Wei Ying!"

He's going to kill Wen Chao, he's going to kill him, Wei Ying could be dead he was already injured -- 

Wangji doesn't know how to descend a cliff face with a broken leg but it's time to fucking figure that out.

He thought he saw some of the Wen guards carrying rope...  Jiang Cheng yells at them to hurry up (and nearly gets kicked down himself for the trouble) and shortly afterwards there are some ropes which the hostages can begin descending.  

This is very painful and involves a lot of sliding, but he makes it work.

He limp-staggers to Wei Ying's side the moment he touches solid ground. "Wei Ying."

Wei Wuxian shushes him and pushes him away, moving further out of the line of sight.

Oh.

Okay.

He'll just limp off in this other direction then.

Wen Chao climbs down after them.  There's no especially dignified way to slide down a cliff with a rope, and he seems to resent that he might have been seen slipping around on the loose gravel.  He will distract himself by scanning his eyes over the cave floor, curious to see whether or not Wei Wuxian died.

Wei Wuxian did not die.  Wei Wuxian isn't anywhere to be seen. 

Wei Wuxian throws a talisman at Wen Chao, which pins him to the ground, and immediately runs up to him and grabs his sword.

Wen Chao starts yelling frantically for his guards to do something about this.

The guards frantically try to do something about this! The three closest to Wei Wuxian run at him with their own swords drawn.

Wei Wuxian is good with a sword.  He'd prefer to have Suibian, but it's not actually hard for him to fend the three of them off.  He manages to disarm one of them, and tosses the sword to Lan Zhan.