The forest is dark, and calm, and quiet. Birds chirp in the trees, and herbivores snuffle around in the underbrush or bolt at the scent of a predator, but nothing more aggressive than nature itself can dwell long here without being discovered and dealt with, one way or another.
In a clearing, a brook winds its way through shallow curves in the hillside. Anything remotely supernatural that happened here would definitely be noticed within less than an hour.
In real life Isabella doesn't know what to do with that immediately but she doesn't have to make her decisions about what will happen in several hours in real time, so let us suppose she does not pause in a few seconds' bewilderment before replying: [How?]
[I don't know. It's Mo Xuanyu--he--
I composed a song, once, and have never played it for anyone but Wei Ying, and he just carved a bamboo flute and began playing that song.]
[Not yet.]
Pause.
[Oh. Wen Ning is also less dead than previously supposed. I don't know how that happened either.]
Pause.
[Wen Ning is crushing the statue with his bare hands. It appears to be working.]
[...okay. I suppose I could try asking him for help early in the fight even if we don't know where he's located at the time.]
[I'm not sure if that will help. He doesn't appear very lucid. He--he's responding to Wei Ying's music, but not to anything anyone else says. He's behaving more like a normal fierce corpse.]
[That is--probably not necessary. The statue did not begin attacking until someone made a foolish wish. I can speak to Wei Ying.]
[Jin Ling. He and Sizhui and Jingyi and several cultivators from other sects were gathered at the shrine and Jin Ling wished for the soul-eater to appear in front of him. Nine minutes ago.]
She drops out and disseminates the relevant tactical information.
And adds to Wangji, [You concluded Mo Xuanyu was actually - Wei Wuxian alive somehow - when he played a song you never played for anyone else.]
Wei Ying is alive.
There is nothing more important, in this moment, than going to find him. Wei Ying is the person he met as Mo Xuanyu; he came within a hair's breadth of him and he walked away.
Wei Ying did not want to come with him; Wei Ying has never wanted to come with him. This is--unfortunate, but not something he can change.
But the fact that he was the one to walk away stings.
Wei Ying is alive. Even if he never sees him again, he is alive, and that is--that is more than he thought would ever be the case, more than he could ever have hoped for, almost everything he has dreamed of for the past thirteen years.
Wei Ying.
Wei Ying is over here putting his foot in his mouth with Jin Ling. And Jiang Cheng's here too! Looking more pissed-off than average even for him.
Apparently thirteen years is long enough to forget Wei Ying's complete and utter inability to not find the worst possible situation within a mile and fling himself headfirst into it.
He is not going to stab Jiang Wanyin. It would cause more problems than it solved. Jiang Wanyin does not know that "Mo Xuanyu" is Wei Ying or that he practiced demonic cultivation at Mo Village. Probably he does not know these things; Lan Wangji should really know better than to set lower bounds on Wei Ying's ability to get in trouble.
He considers his options.
He could attempt to speak with Jiang Wanyin. Ugh. Terrible. He doesn't even have Sizhui or Jingyi to do his part of the speaking for him. And what would he even say.
He could...continue to stand here just barely out of sight until one or the other party left. Unacceptable; that would leave Wei Ying far too close to alone with Jiang Wanyin for an indefinite period of time. No.
He could walk in, grab Wei Ying by the wrist, and physically drag him away. Hm. On the one hand, Wei Ying isn't likely to be pleased with being dragged off with no explanation. On the other hand, it's not like Jiang Wanyin understands or wants or expects to understand Lan Wangji any more than the reverse, and probably this would not raise his suspicions particularly. And it would involve Wei Ying not being in the same place as Jiang Wanyin, immediately.
Well, that settles it.
"Wh--hey! Hanguang-jun? You said you'd let me go!" Wei Ying exclaims as he is physically dragged off.
Once they are out of earshot of Jin Rulan and Jiang Wanyin, Lan Wangji releases him.
"I apologize," he says softly, "Wei Ying."
"Aw, man. That ability of hers is really pretty inconvenient for me. I couldn't get away with anything back at Mo Village."
"It has saved many lives. And I am not sorry to know you are not dead."
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