Solstice Souls Book 2: Black Fire, White Flame

Searching For Answers

Dark and Light.

One could not exist without the other.

The tea actually worked.

Lan Zhan sighed, letting go of the invisible tension he had been holding on to. Next to him, he could feel a similar reaction in Wei Ying's body as he sagged and rested his head on Lan Zhan's shoulder.

XiChen smiled at both of them, and his honey coloured eyes were kind with warmth and understanding.

"I won't keep you long, I promise. Didi, what did you want to talk about?"

"I have an idea...not sure. Didn't want everyone to hear." Lan Zhan could feel his ears getting hotter.

Wei Ying lifted their joined hands and his perfect mouth kissed the back of Lan Zhan's hand, making him feel even hotter. To be the sole focus in this man's gaze, to be the only thing he was concentrating on...it was a heady feeling.

"Go on, my love. I trust you."

Those simple three words were utterly humbling.

They had come such a long way for Wei Ying to be able to say them so open-heartedly. It was both an honour and a challenge, and Lan Zhan hoped he would always be worthy of them.

"Wei Ying needs answers. We must go back to his Grandmother. On the way back to Yunmeng. We can warn Wei Ying's parents, find out about his mother's condition, move them somewhere safe. Would they stay with Baoshan Sanren?" That last bit was inspired, but Lan Zhan hoped Wei Ying liked that idea.

He thought the celestial immortal had far too many tricks up her sleeves and wasn't going to put it past her not to help. For starters, Cangse Sanren was her daughter, and what mother would not do anything to help her children?

But more importantly, with Cangse Sanren incapacitated, possibly still in a coma, she was unable to fight or defend herself, and their enemies would be looking for that fatal flaw, the chink in their armour, their weak point to exploit.

It was their duty to make sure this did not happen.

Lan Zhan was absolutely sure Wei Ying would feel so much better if he had no worries about his parents' welfare. Then, they could fully focus on whatever the Wens were trying to do, and so hopefully come up with a counter plan.

Many people, especially laymen and women, ones who had no golden cores and no hopes of cultivating any, were most often not at all aware of the dangers they were living in.

War could break out at any opportunity, any minute, and what these people failed to realise was that months and months of strategically planning every move, hours and hours of analysis and predictive speculation went into preventing something for which these very same people would become cannon fodder.

War did not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

War was a destructive event, for every single entity involved and this fact was unchangeable. Eons of history proved that war was a carnage that everyone could do without, and the same story repeated itself through time immemorial.

Today was no different, but right now, they had perhaps only hours of an advantage over their hidden enemies.

"Well, if my plans were anything to do with infiltrating rival clans, I know I would enforce a system that allowed me to know if something was wrong, without my spies actually having to contact me." As if Wei Ying knew exactly what Lan Zhan was thinking about, he said the very words that Lan Zhan was about to utter.

"Mn. So speed is of the essence." Lan Zhan finished, so glad that Wei Ying was the sort of person to whom he did not have to explain every nuance. "We need to make our move before our enemies can figure out that something is wrong, that they have been compromised."