THE YILING MATRIARCH

Chapter 43 : Of Crimes and a bit of Truth

The sound of falling rain was the first thing Meifeng's clouded mind could register as she regained consciousness. It was heavy, causing the heavens above to turn a cold, dark gray color that Meifeng used to like when she lived in Jiang Yunmeng that signaled a rain that would water the plants. Now the shade only filled her with a sense of foreboding dread as darkened memories obscured her past.

Meifeng actually couldn't recall the last time the soft rumble had caused her to smile from ear to ear; it probably hadn't been since she lived in the Yiling Valley with the few Wen survivors she had managed to save.

The second she realized was the lack of sensation she felt in her abdomen, just under her rib cage where Wangji's hand was with a healing incantation, was when she remembered what had caused it: a single sword strike aimed for her heart. A sword that Jin Ling had cut into her himself because of one thoughtless action she had made, recalling what had happened prior to her near-fatal injury.

Everyone's breath was held as Jin Guangyao's gaze, once soft in melancholy with loss, now turned harsh as he directed a found anger on Mo Xiemei and accused her of causing his wife to commit suicide. All Jin members that had rushed into the room released their swords as their leader called out the accusation, and Meifeng found herself backed against a shelf as Wangji stood in front of her. Lan Xichen, alarmed by this, also found himself standing on the side of his brother even while he pleaded for everyone to take another action instead of killing the young lady.

No matter where Meifeng looked for a way out, there was no path to reason with the Jin clan while they were in this state, especially not with their clan leader staring right into her eyes with that fake anger he projected in front of his desire to hide his devilish actions. In an act separate from her consciousness, a fumbling hand reached to one of the shelves for anything that could help them or at least be used as a weapon and pulled out the first object she had found. Everyone in the room was now in an uproar of disbelief and outrage, looking at the item in Meifeng's hands to be none other than Suibian, her sword which had until now been locked in its sheath for no one other than its true master for over a decade.

"Mo Xiemei, you drew out that sword!? No, you're not Mo Xiemei.... You are Wei Meifeng, the Yiling Matriarch!" Jin Guangyao's own sword pointed to her, the expression in his eyes made to match everyone in the confined space.

There was no way she could explain this to them. No excuse she could come up with to counter this incident. Nowhere to run now that her true identity was revealed to a room that hated her name. Jin Ling's voice fell deaf on his paternal uncle's ears, the man pushing the teen aside as the room moved in sync to capture Wei Meifeng and properly execute her for her past crimes.

Lan Wangji movements after this were too fast for Meifeng to keep up with, fighting off five men at the same time while whisking her to somewhere else, somewhere safe, but when they managed to break through to the outside...

There were no words to describe the pain she suddenly felt in her chest, looking into the eyes of her assailant whose life she had unintentionally ruined; a child who looked so much like his dear mother the same moment he ran the sharp end of a sword right through her with the intent of piercing her heart.

Upon hearing the woman whom Jin Ling had been traveling with and had trusted in many dangerous experiences was none other than Wei Meifeng, something inside the young man had broken him to his core, causing him to attack her while Wangji had been pushing back against their aggressors. With blood already pooling out from the cut, Wangji's form pushed Jin Ling away, applied pressure to the area as best as he could to slow the bleeding, and jumped from one rooftop to another until they were out of Lanling and under the safety of a large forest.