A soft breeze drifted lazily over the ever-black dominating the landscape of Burial Mound. "Lan Zhan." Wei Ying said, licking his lips. A flutter in his stomach made him pause before he continued. It was not his style to speak on his feelings and this was doubly the case of Lan Wangji. Yet, when they were alone, they could more or less be honest with each other. "I am a little nervous. I'm honestly not sure how to say what I need to say. But, um, I feel like right now I need the reassurance. It may sound ridiculous for a man to say this, but I want to marry. I want to be part of a family. I want to give A-Yaun the stability of a family, even an unconventional one, even if others disparage us for it!" He sighed, fumbling with the hems of his sleeves. "I honestly cannot tolerate being with anyone else nor will there be any other child for me."

He waited as patiently as he could for the response. Talk of marriage had, at first, been nothing more than a joke. Yet after some time to think about it, Wei Ying had felt there was nothing wrong with it. It was a ritual, something to say and swear to, to show off to others. That 'this one is mine' and 'I belong to that one!'.

They had put it off for a while now due to difficulties with the other sects and even with Lan Qi Ren. He was simply an obstinate fellow not truly intolerant. Even now, the demonic path was regarded as evil by many and there were often small skirmishes as a result. That he taught anyone at all the basic techniques of cultivating yin energy had inspired some but more found it disagreeable. His relationship with another man had caused some to treat him as a woman, too, which had caught him entirely off guard. There had been a few hilarious situations arising from this and a few extremely serious incidents.

All of them had dragged out his most important people, not always nicely, and he would never forgive that!

His people were flourishing, though.

Wen Qing was still a single and independent woman, moving all over the place to treat the seriously ill or injured. She went to the larger night hunts to make her skills available to all the Sects. She wore only a plain white robe with a red sash. White for the spirit and red for human blood. There were still people who hated the sight of her but the majority of the Sect Leaders cast their protections over her because they knew she was valuable. Her literary works were first-rate and had pushed others to take up medical cultivation as their path, leading to more lives being saved.

Wen Ning was already married and expecting his first child now.

Lan Zhan took it in. His eyes wavered somewhat. Then he nodded once. Indeed, small blushes appeared on his cheeks. "I have never been truly against it." He stated. "You will not regret this? You are desired by many. More women would accept your offer than one could count on their fingers." He said this openly as they were definitely alone.

It was a lie that Lan Wangji was unable to put two words together.

"Yes, but they are only awestruck." Wei Ying replied, with a sigh. "I won't deny that I think girls are cute. But, then, I think Wen Ning is cute. I don't think about him like that, though." He shrugged. "There was never such a person for me so I can't regret it. You are the only one that has been with me through everything." He looked down, aware that when he said it, it was much more dark and depressing than Lan Zhan could understand. Even now, his reincarnated self held the memories of another life...a life in which he had met an unpleasant end, no less. "Yes, and I know that you will be with me right up until I die. That's enough for me."

The blushes on Lan Zhan's cheeks became a little darker. "Hm."

"Then I will put on a red dress and amuse you." Wei Ying said, wiggling his shoulders flirtatiously. He had come to understand that Lan Zhan liked it when he flittered around and played up to him, yet he had never gotten the impression Lan Zhan would rather he was female. Such petty things as gender had no meaning when they had literally been through the worst of times.

If any other couple could compare to almost being eaten alive by a turtle, Wei Ying would kowtow nine times and take their surname!

Getting up from the shady spot, Wei Ying shivered and rested his hand on the trunk of a tree. Sometimes he grew lightheaded upon standing. He was taken into strong, gentle arms. They stayed that way for a long time, too, but then Lan Zhan picked him up. They shared a room most nights but had only recently become intimate. As if it had been the right time for it. Wei Ying was comfortable with their current habits and snuggled up to him.

He wanted to share his happiness with his important people, though. Yanli had married as he had known she would. To Jin Zixuan. He was a lucky bastard if ever there was one. His life had also been saved due to the Stygian Tiger Seal's time-trick. Jiang Fangmian was the type that just smiled when others were happy so his relationship with a man had been no different. Madam Yu still did not speak to him but she had not said anything to disparage them, either. Cheng...was confused in many ways. He was struggling to find his own path and build his adult life and that included the possibility of marriage. Of course, it could not be rushed or forced. So talk of relationships at all was hard for him.

Thinking it would be interesting to hear Yanli's frank advice on how to hold a wedding for two guys, Wei Ying decided to visit her. Jing Ling was a little rowdy these days and it would be good for Yuan to get a taste of being an elder brother. So he packed up the toddler and took Wen Ning and Lan Zhan on a meandering tour of Yiling. They ate out, bought stuff for Wen Ning's new house, and doted on the mischievous six-year-old until he was quite rotten.

Wei Ying typically avoided the Qionqi Road. He had terrible memories of the place that he could not share with others. From when he had awoken in his past body in the sealed turtle cave, he had understood he was taking the hardest path. Although things had worked out, there was still some worry that everything would go up in flames and he would end up alone.

Looking over at Wen Ning, he could not help but smile smugly. He was alive! He was a living man, not a zombie! He was going to be a father! And by his side was Lan Zhan; they were going to get married, be a family. A-Yuan had asked for them to be his parents and as Old Granny had finally passed away, Wei Ying had accepted. But only if he had the surname Lan. He was afraid that if the child had his surname, he would become even more of a target than he already was, and Lan Zhan had accepted that rational without questioning it. He had even brought him a forehead ribbon with the cloud motif and given him a public name!

It was a truly wonderful feeling.

Which was why it cut him through his very soul when he heard Wen Ning scream. It was the cry of a man who was shocked and in pain rather than of fear. Whipping around, Wei Ying saw that Wen Ning was bleeding from his shoulder and his mouth. An arrow was stuck into his back. Another thudded into his body and he collapsed onto his hands and knees, staring at the ground. A large gout of blood came out of his mouth as he hacked.

"Noooo!" Wei Ying screamed, throwing his hands out toward him, darkness leaping out and surrounding him.

Above, archers rose and focused on them. They were Jin Zixun's gaggle of insurgents, dead-set on making life harder for everyone. Wei Ying knew there was the possibility of more to it. In this place, someone had come to attack him. He had tried so hard to avoid it and here it was, happening despite several years difference in the time-line! He turned his eyes around frantically, looking for the source of it.

Jin Zixun came out, his pudgy, ugly face obnoxious as usual. He pointed dramatically. "Scoundrel! I have you now! Shoot them! Throw them into the ravine!"

Gritting his teeth, Wei Ying pulled Chongqing from his belt but he did not lift it to his lips. The seal on his hands burned and itched as the Tiger Seal woke up slowly. He had not used it in almost a year so it was basically dormant. Yet as soon as he called on the resentment it woke up and turned its attention on his target.

"You!" Wei Ying shouted at him. "What are you saying I've done now?" His heart was beating painfully in his chest as he waited for a response. This welp did not know how to lie properly so what he said was likely what he actually believed. And that could be quite telling even if it was not the truth.

"You cursed me! I killed some of your guest cultivators a while back and you dragged me to Carp Tower. You humiliated me in front of my uncle and sect leader, my cousins, and everyone in the cultivation world! I spent an entire year imprisoned because of you! But as though that was not enough, now you seek my death in this disgusting way?!" He pulled his robe aside to reveal as chest malted with small holes and swollen veins. "I will kill you and the curse will stop there!"

"Again." Wei Ying narrowed his eyes at this and gritted his teeth. "Jin Zixun, it is not I who has cursed you! Someone else, someone working behind the scenes, has done this thing!" He said it clearly and distinctly. "I have no control over it and my death will not save your life!"

"Lies!" Jin Zixun shouted, lifting his hands to signal the archers. "Shoot them! Shoot them!"

Turning to look at Lan Zhan, Wei Ying saw that he was fine. One strum from his zither and the arrows all went wild. One blow from Bichen and they were rendered unable to get up. He did not kill anyone, though, and he understood they were operating until a falsehood. The difficulty was that Wen Ning had been shot. Wei Ying cast his attention to Wen Ning; he had not gotten up and had his arms out to either side in a ridiculous posture.

He was protecting A-Yuan with his body!

With two arrows in his back, he could not transition easily from one pose to another. A-Yuan was silent as he lay on his back, looking up at Wen Ning. This was his cousin and an adult. A-Yuan knew what death was, knew what blood from the mouth meant. He understood totally that people were trying to kill them. That, yet again, people had come to take everyone away from him. He looked to the side as four Jin clansmen came down the wall of the ravine with darkness banishing talismans. A-Yuan recognised their robes, he had seen them before. They pulled Wen Ning by his hair and grabbed the arrows stuck into him, trying to drive them in deeper. A-Yuan wiggled out and attached himself to a leg, biting deeply into the back of the man's knee. His whole face was smeared with blood and he chewed and bit down over and over. He was kicked off eventually and rolled away over the gravel. He picked it up in his hand and flung it at them, his eyes very big. Tears ran over his face and he climbed onto Wen Ning, hugging him about the head and likely not helping much in not worsening his injuries.

"No, you should run!" Wen Ning said, trying to pull him off and hug him again. "Please do not harm this young child!" He begged, not making any aggressive movements.

Furious, Wei Ying lifted the flute. Just three notes and he gave up. They had dug out all the nearby copses, just like before. The timeline was different but the motives were the same. Their basic actions were also the same. But there were different variables on his side. Wen Ning was not a feral corpse and would not lose control. That meant he could be killed. He did not have to worry about the Tiger Seal going hay-wire. But, they had A-Yuan with them. There was no way for him to predict everything absolutely and he could only make each decision as the situation evolved.

Rushing forward, Wei Ying let the darkness spill out and the repelling talismans withered in their hands. They were not strong enough for him or even the wisps that came off his hem.

"Wei Ying!" Lan Zhan called out a warning to him.

"I won't kill them if I can avoid it!" He replied, more aware than anyone what would happen if he killed these people. "Jin Zixun, I will do something about that curse! I may not be the cause of it but I may be able to treat it. At the very least I can try to halt its progression. But if you continue to attack my family I will definitely eradicate you!"

"Ha! Like I can believe a word you say!" Jin Zixun retorted, folding his arms over his chest in a bratty stance. "Those Wen dogs should have been destroyed already anyway!"

Wen Ning gritted his teeth but his wounds got the better of him and he coughed up more blood. Others crept forward and tackled him, pulling him back by his hair. Someone got a hold on A-Yuan's arm and flung him out into the ravine. Wen Ning's eyes widened dramatically and he let out a bellow that could have come from a feral corpse. He launched himself, ripping his hair, and dove right over the edge into the chasm.

Time fractured. The ground at his feet ruptured and black hands rose out from inside them, grabbing them by their ankles and dragging them into the void. From the top of the ravine to the bottom. Wei Ying felt sick to his stomach as he could only hear A-Yuan's scream and Wen Ning's roar over and over in his ears. "My child..." He said, holding his stomach. "...my Yuan..."

"What the hell is going on here?!" Came a domineering, haughty tone.

"No!" Wei Ying turned, pointing at Jin Zixuan. He had popped out from somewhere, only furthering the nightmare. "You stay where you are!" He shouted, loudly. "Do not move one step from where you are! You'll die!" Beside himself, Wei Ying rushed to where Lan Zhan had finally gotten some respite. Around half the cultivators were gone and the rest were regrouping. "Lan Zhan...he fell...A-Yuan...he fell!" He could not get that out of his mind.

"He could survive the fall!" Lan Zhan reassured him. "It is not a long drop and there are no rocks. If Wen Ning caught him, even more so."

"Yuan?" Jin Zixuan was standing very precariously still with one foot raise. He examined the ground and then set his foot down again. "And? How am I going to die if I move?" He looked at Zixun sideway with something like hate on his chiselled features. "I'll deal with you later."

"My son!" Wei Ying snarled, stomping his foot. "They just threw him away?! I just saw him fall right in front of my eyes!" Tears ran down his cheeks as he vented on this person. "Why are you here?! Why did you have to come here?! And you...!" He turned to Jin Zixun. "...I have told you! I didn't curse! Yet you still attack my Sect brother and my fiancé and my child?! Do you no longer want what time you've got left?!"

Zixun was surrounded by around a hundred men now and they were all very frightened. Taking him on was already terrifying. Lan Zhan was another army unto himself. They had targeted the weak link by default but that had only made things worse.

Jin Zixuan had gone very, very pale. Sweat ran down the side of his face. He swallowed reflexively. "Your son?" He asked, his hand going to the necklace he wore. It was in no way befitting him, in his high station and clashed brutally with his all gold. Because it was blue and sparkly and had bits and pieces of junk attached to it. But his son had made it and he was wearing it. Likely because his wife had made him put it on. "You...!" He turned toward his clansmen angrily. "You attacked a child?!"

"We thought they were Wens!" One of the younger men said, lifting his hands. "He was wearing white!"

"He's a child, of course he's wearing white!" Jin Zixuan snarled, pumping his fists. "Oh, I have never been so ashamed of the Sparks Amidst Snow as I am right now! If I could strip you and make you walk back naked I would still feel it too much of a disgrace. Our Jin clan the murderer of children?! Beautifully done, Zixun!" He ground his teeth. "Wei Wuxian...there is a ford some miles from here! It is likely they will drift there!" He turned, walking forward, forgetting the warning said to him.

Panicked, Wei Ying moved out toward him. To meet him and shelter him. Yanli's important person! There was a twang on the air. It sounded similar to a bowstring but it was not precisely the same. A rumble filled the air. Wei Ying felt a wave of earth ki slam into him and he dropped, his hand going to his head. Lan Zhan hastily caught him and held him up. There was a tearing, rending noise. The ground was trembling but not bucking. It was not an earthquake. The shelves in the ravine walls, that lifted some dozens of feet above the bridge, collapsed and everyone tumbled down. Something had definitely set it

off. They had done much digging in the area so someone might have also set it up to collapse. Likely, at some specific moment or at a certain trigger.

The bridge ruptured and fell into the chasm and several cultivators with it. The support poles from the bridge were left sharp and jagged, one protruding dangerously like a spear. Jin Zixun was running for his life and did not even bother to look at who he trampled. He pulled and pushed the others from his path, screaming the entire time. His eyes were huge and his hair came down as he struggled. Those who were dragged into the earth were screaming, too. A few drove their swords into their own bodies. The din melted in together as the landslide devoured everything in its path.

Supported by Lan Zhan, Wei Ying concentrated on keeping the earth right under them together. He forced the yin energy to mix with the soil. The spirits that were always with him held on to what they could. It was only four feet but it was a stable piece of ground. Jin Zixun was just outside that sphere so Wei Ying cast a hand to him, to pull him to stand beside them. He saw it and reached out as well.

A hand landed on Jin Zixuan's shoulder.

He was pulled backwards and flung to the side.

Lan Zhan gasped and looked pricelessly shocked. Even he mouthed some silent prayer as Jin Zixuan flailed his arms and writhed as the post stuck through his entire chest. He looked like an insect tacked and flapping around. Blood flooded down his chin and throat and his eyes became dulled as a pool of blood formed at his feet.

The shuddering stopped, the land settled, the clouds of dust drifted off.

Jin Zixun was on his hands and knees with just four other cultivators as survivors. They were holding their hands over their heads and whimpering, most incontinent or vomiting.

There was no nightmare Wei Ying had had that could be as bad as this. He stood there, feeling a little disoriented as he just stared at Jin Zixuan body, hanging limply from the pole.

Then a noise came to him and he looked to the side sharply. A hand came up from the ravine and Wen Ning's head popped up there. He flung a very wet A-Yuan onto the shelf and climbed up after him. He curled up, his hair ratty, and panted. "They were...waiting...down there..." He said, between gasps. "...they tried to fish us out with poles and take us hostage!"

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, his mouth puckered. "Please, disregard it."

He swung around, lifting his hand toward the surviving cultivators. They were all knocked out easily in their current conditions. Jin Zixuan he pulled from the post with his own hands. The body was in a terrible state but the soul was still nearby. Although the torso was bad, his neck and spine were intact. His head was whole. His intestine was not ripped. He needed lungs and a heart and some rib bones. So Wei Ying dragged Jin Zixun over to him and tore open his chest. His heart was beating right there in front of them and continued to beat even when exposed to the air.

Lan Zhan flinched badly, his face twisting up.

Wen Ning had Yuan looked the other way but his eyes were trained on the procedure. "Take it from the base. You need to connect all the vessels neatly so the blood will flow properly!" He said, earnestly. "Sister said it was possible but she has never had a success!"

"If it is possible, I will make it happen!" Wei Ying said, manipulating the organ with his yin energy and connecting the many vessels as quickly and thoroughly as he could. The lungs followed. Then the bones. As if he was sculpting. All the while, the Tiger Seal had hold of Jin Zixuan's spirit and was keeping in the sealed environment of the ravine. He pulled all the vitality and resources from Jin Zixun's carcass until it was just a husk, and used these to replace the blood and fluids lost. Lastly, he needed to seal the major hole in Jin Zixuan's body.

So without even thinking about it, he transferred the entire thing onto his own body. The blood ran down and stained his clothes as the hole ripped through him. He spat the blood out to the side. He was more than used to major injuries and it was not even that painful. He had ripped out his own Golden Core, what that having a small hole in his chest?

He turned, his eyes lightly appearing inhuman to them. "He needs yang energy!" He said, hoarsely.

Lan Zhan knelt, putting his hands together before his face. He revved up all the energy he could spare and basically brought it down like a hammer on Jin Zixuan's chest. The percussion could have cracked his new ribs but it certainly force-started his new heart and his body shook all over. Slowly, he drew in a breath. Another breath followed. His fingers and face gained colour. His brows pinched and he opened his eyes. At first, they were those of a corpse. Then he blinked a few times and the light came back into them.

"I am..." He muttered, softly. "...am I...dead?" He asked, numbly.

"No." Lan Zhan said. "You are a living man."

Wen Ning carried Yuan over to them, kneeling beside them in awe. "Everyone else is dead." He said softly, as he looked around. "Below, they got away. I'm sorry young master..." He looked down and hugged Yuan tightly. "...they will say lies about you again!"

"Yes, well..." Wei Ying turned, leaning on Lan Zhan's shoulder. "...for now, I think we should get out of here. The ravine isn't stable anymore. We need to tell the mortals not to come this way for at least a month. And then..." He turned to Yuan, who was fighting bravely even now. "...we can go home."

The child looked at them all and let out a wail. He was six. He was scared. He had fought hard and almost died. The word 'home' was too much for him and he could only bury his face in his little hands and scream.

Screams that all four of them would carry in their hearts forever.