the truth untold

3

"I knew it! This is all Wei Wuxian's doing!" Sect Leader Yao yelled from the back where the irrelevants are seated.

No one refuted his statement but everyone can feel the sudden drop of the temperature in the room.

"Wangji." Lan Xichen, who is seated on the couch next to Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, broke the silence with his gentle voice. Calm down was left unsaid but understood by his brother.

Some people shivered once the Second Jade of Lan calmed himself (whether he was agitated didn't show on his stony face but the lingering coldness of the room is enough proof that he didn't take lightly the slandering words thrown to his husband).

"Great news! Wei Wuxian has died!" Lan Wangji's expression immediately darkened. Wei Wuxian squeezed his husband's hand to remind that it is okay now.

The cultivators are drinking and celebrating the death of the Founder of Demonic Cultivation who went against the Four Great Clans, Wei Wuxian.

"The Yiling Patriarch has died? Who could have killed him?"

"Who other than his shidi, Jiang Cheng, putting an end to his own relative for the greater good. Jiang Cheng led the Four Clans of YunmengJiang, LanlingJin, GusuLan, and QingheNie to destroy his den– Burial Mounds."

Jiang Cheng heard his sister's gasp beside him. He did not dare to look at her, ashamed of what he did to the person that Jiang Yanli raised.

"A-Cheng..." she breathed softly and Jiang Cheng pretended not to hear the sadness in her voice.

"If not for the YunmengJiang clan's adopting and teaching him, he would have been a hobo living on the streets, let alone causing mayhem as bold as the ones these days. The head of the Jiang clan raised him as her own child, yet he defected them and became the enemy of the cultivation world, bringing shame upon the Jiang clan, even leading to its near-extermination. He is the prime example of biting the hand that feeds him!"

The said head of Jiang clan is now clenching his fist, forcing his anger to dissipate. Wei Wuxian is the child of his late friends; he wouldn't let the child be alone roaming the streets while fighting with ferocious animals for scrap of foods.

"That's merely hearsay. Although Jiang Cheng was one of the main forces, he did not give Wei Wuxian the final blow. Because he cultivates the Demon Path, Wei Wuxian's powers had backfired and he was ripped to pieces."

The statement earned a gasp from the people who didn't live long enough to witness the Yiling Patriarch's death.

Jiang Yanli's eyes are becoming watery as the conversation of the gossiping cultivators goes on but hearing the last sentence shattered her heart. A-xian..., she looked at the unfamiliar face of his brother who merely gave her a reassuring smile that everything is fine now. It was enough for Yanli to calm a little... for now.

The conversation continues as more and more common folk listen to the rumbling of the drunken cultivators, taking in as much information as they can get so that they can spread the hearsay to other civilians.

Days passed and Wei Wuxian's death remains as the topic of discussions among the people, common men and cultivators alike.

Some cultivators tried to summon the shattered soul of the Yiling Patriarch but no one succeeded.

Various clans initiated frequent soul-summoning rituals, followed by heightened vigilance and searches for strange occurrences from all over the world.