![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
audio | un: yiling patriarch
Hey, every one of us glorious abductees! A question, to those listening right now, brought to you by myself and Master Archeval due to the considerations of a friend, but: what would you make of being informed that, and here I'm quoting, "The man you trust was six years not among us?"
( A dramatic pause, for digestion purposes. )
All said and done, with that message slipped to me, I can say with certainty there's a handful I fully trust here, and there's none I trust entirely from here, no offense. However, there is one we've been forced to trust, ah? In hearing these words, what are your thoughts?
( A dramatic pause, for digestion purposes. )
All said and done, with that message slipped to me, I can say with certainty there's a handful I fully trust here, and there's none I trust entirely from here, no offense. However, there is one we've been forced to trust, ah? In hearing these words, what are your thoughts?
no subject
I am, but...a moment still? I'm confused about something and don't want to spoil a meal because of it.
[Multiple somethings, but those are semantics.]
You sound so sure when you say we've met before, but that can't be. I left the mountain after...
[There really isn't a polite way to talk about someone's death to their face, is there? But Wei Wuxian has already alluded to it in previous conversation, so that makes this...easier?]
After your presumed death.
[He takes a breath. This is the harder point to speak of.]
I also don't know how you found out about...Song-daozhang. And if you somehow know, then who's to say that you're the only one? But I...it isn't something I necessarily wish to be common knowledge. I hope you understand.
no subject
I... because we helped Song-daozhang recover, after. I don't have reason to talk about him in general, but between him and living through A-Qing's memories—
( But he cuts himself off, shaking his head and clutching his potatoes like pearls. )
Shishu, you what? That doesn't make sense. I met you before the war, not long after leaving Gusu Lan. ( Another tick of a discrepancy he doesn't know is one. ) You'd been tracking down Xue Yang? Both you and Song-daozhong.
( Keeping to that address, following his martial uncle's lead. )
Qinghe Nie too custody after you captured him. Does none of that sound familiar? I wasn't—nothing happened for at least two years after.
no subject
No, none of this is right.
Song Lan was on the mountain. Baoshan Sanren may be wary of others from the outside world, but Xingchen is sure she isn't so heartless as to kick a wounded man out of her home. And how does Wei Wuxian know A-Qing? And her memories? What does that even mean?
Xingchen shakes his head through all of this and is about to speak up and say so when...that name leaves Wei Wuxian's lips.
Xue Yang.
His hands grasp at the fabric of his robes so hard that his knuckles turn white. It's hard to breathe. How long has it been since he's heard that wretched name or had good reason to think of its owner? All the atrocities he's committed come back to Xingchen: the cruel murders of the Chang Clan, the senseless massacre of Baixue Temple...targeting Song Lan just because he was Xingchen's friend. Xingchen can't speak for a few moments, his lips trembling with grief and anger. Xue Yang ruined so much. If he hated Xingchen so much he should have just faced him head-on! Why did he have to be so...so terrible?
Xingchen keeps shaking his head, his brows knitted harshly and his lips pursed into a tight line. When he finally is able to speak again, his voice is low, darker than he'd like, but Xue Yang is his personal demon, after all.]
I brought him to Lanling Jin for all the good that did. Maybe I should have passed him over to Qinghe Nie.
[Nie Mingjue probably would have executed him. Then Song Lan wouldn't have suffered. His temple wouldn't have been wiped out. Maybe...maybe the two of them would still be cultivation partners.]
no subject
I'd say yes, it would help, but the Wens attacked and Meng Yao released Xue Yang from the dungeon before his execution could be carried out. Shi... Shishu, I... don't understand. Lanling Jin had nothing to do with Xue Yang until Meng Yao was acting as Jin Guangyao.
( Everything horrible that followed is a list he can partly name from borrowed experience through Nie Mingjue's dead eyes, but that's not the point. The point is: )
I know what they say about my memory, but it's supposedly what I forget, not remembering two completely different truths. You wouldn't lie, and that's not what I recall. Just... even the timing? You didn't descend the mountain before I threw myself off the cliff in Nightless City?
( Yet another difference, if he knew. )
no subject
Xue Yang was a disciple of the Jin Sect, so it should have been their responsibility to punish him for the Chang Clan massacre. If that happened for you.
[Anything seems to be possible at this point. But at least when the topic seems to steer away from Xue Yang, Xingchen's hands slowly begin to relax their grip. He's still incredibly uncertain, but he can get himself under control again.]
I wouldn't lie about any of this. I have no reason to suspect you would, either, but I swear I did not leave until after you died. Except...Nightless City? They say you died in the siege of the Burial Mounds.
[The popular theory - or at least the one Xingchen has heard the most - is that Jiang Wanyin was the one to kill Wei Wuxian, but true or not, it doesn't seem right to accuse a man's adoptive brother of such an act.]
no subject
He never was of the Jin sect, only the Wens. His relationship with the Jins was all in the shadows?
( These differences are too significant. He doesn't know what to do with that, not fully. Slowly, as if sounding out each word... )
Is... it at all possible. We're both right? That the things we do or don't recall... aren't because of this place, or something odd messing with our memories. That there are two different places where we both lived?
( ...................... this hurts his head and fascinates him at the same time, because he cannot think of this man as a liar, and he doesn't trust his memory in all things, but he does in these conflicts of details. )
no subject
Suddenly a little tired from all this, he leans back against the plant table, his shoulders dropping.]
Maybe. If we didn't agree on one or two little details, I'd put that down to hazy memory or bad information, but we have such drastically different experiences that can't be misremembered. And considering the others in our group who wouldn't call our home as such, it's clear we all come from different places. Perhaps even times, as impossible as that sounds. Maybe we're missing the forest for the trees.
no subject
That's a different sort of disturbing. Xingchen isn't reacting to Xue Yang in the soulbroken way; the name caused him pain, but he hadn't shattered, and Wei Wuxian doesn't know if mentioning Song Lan or Xue Yang at the time of Xiao Xingchen's death would have produced a response so comparatively... reasonable.
Wen Qing is even longer out of the world he knew best. So... )
For the sake of the forest, we... may have to admit, the layout of truth as we thought we knew it is more flexible than it was before. Maybe we... how we're pulled here, we don't understand either. The gates, that whole process, it's an unknown. If we're from the same worlds or not, from different times as... well, we are, Jiang Cheng doesn't know what he should and that's only explicable if he hasn't lived through the learning yet. So we're from different times, certainly, and different worlds, even if we thought we shared the same one.
( He pauses. )
I don't know about you, but I can really use a roasted potato after that thought.
( Also because he has no more wine right now. )
no subject
Maybe Xingchen is more tired than he has been for a long time because it's almost easier to simply accept the impossibility than try to stand up for logic again and again. Maybe he's slowly growing weaker the longer he doesn't cultivate as intensely as he once did.
In the end, he simply nods, accepting Wei Wuxian's findings, as well as the change of conversation. For real, this time, since Xingchen dragged them back to this in the first place.]
It would be a welcome improvement.
no subject