Come Back to Gusu

53. SiShu Interrupts: Why didn't they just kill you?

Mentally paralyzed with indecision, Wei WuXian didn't register the noises he heard from the end of the corridor.

"Wei Ying? Where are you?" That entered his brain, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Wei Ying? Can you hear me?"

"I'm here, Lan Zhan," Wei WuXian hurried to the cell's bars and almost casually ripped the door from its hinges. "Where are you?" He hurried down the hall and up the stairs to a courtyard where the adult GusuWen men stood as still as statues, the children were being cared for by his allies and Lan Zhan was kneeling, arms wrapped tightly around a small body, even as his eyes locked on his husband. "A'Yuan!" Wei WuXian yelled. Ignoring everyone else, he rushed to his lover and son and nearly fell over in his eagerness to embrace them. "Yuan.... You're safe, now. Thank all the gods you're safe."

An eternity later, he raised his head to ask, "What happened here?"

Lan XiChen answered. "We arrived to find the city mostly cleansed. Which is not what we agreed to, Wei WuXian," he scolded in the nicest voice possible.

"There were wards," Wei WuXian mumbled into his child's shoulder. "I needed to take down the array, or you would have had a hard time entering the city. And then there were a bunch of demonic cultivators; I couldn't just leave them to do whatever to the GusuWen. And then I found out they were being held in the dungeons here, so...."

"Yes. I'm sure," Jin ZiXuan's agreement sounded rather dry and almost sarcastic. "We found your corpses milling about the outside of the dungeons and one rather large hole in the wall. So we hoped you had that part of the situation covered. We situated our cultivators on the other three sides in case Meng Yao was successful in evading you." He idly kicked the prone body at his feet. "Why did you let him escape anyway?"

"Did you kill him? I need him alive! He poisoned the children. Well.. and the adults, too. And he said something about yin iron. I need to know what that is. What he and Xue ChengMei did."

Lan XiChen flashed a triumphant look at Jin ZiXuan. "I told you we should keep him alive." Looking back at the trio, he added, "Jin GuangYao is alive. Lan WangJi knocked him unconscious. He was going to go look for you, but A'Yuan...."

"A'Yuan is far more important that looking for me," Wei WuXIan agreed.

"XianGege?" the child sniffed. "JiGege? Is the bad man..."

"He can't hurt you anymore," Lan WangJi promised.

"NingShushu.... He looks funny and he... knife!"

"NingShushu is under a bad spell, Baobei," Wei WuXian soothed. "Your A'Die and I and our friends will find a way to make him all better. The bad man said he gave you something bad, too. Was it a drink? Or in food?"

Wen Yuan shook his head. "I didn't eat anything bad, Baba."

"Are you sure? There wasn't something he gave to Wen Ning and the other adults, and then gave some to you kids as well?"

Wei Yuan shook his head. "I don't think so?"

A small commotion at the steps caught Wei WuXian's attention. An older man was caressing one of the puppet's faces. "My son," he crooned. "What did they do to you? Why didn't they just kill you?"

Nie HuaiSang stepped out into the daylight. "Nasty place down there." He visibly shivered his disgust and frantically brushed off dirt, both real and imaginary, from his robes. "Meng Yao was certainly quite inventive."

"What did you see?" Jin ZiXuan asked, kicking his half brother again.

"The GusuWen were kept in, almost, nice cells. It appears that food was fresh, not spoiled, and the latrine buckets weren't overflowing. The blankets also looked to be in relatively good condition, too. But once you go back further into the dungeons?" He shivered again. "Blood stains everywhere. There were several large obvious torture chambers... Even I can feel the resentment creeping about." Behind him, men carrying two stretchers covered in cloth exited the dungeon.