Honor and Cultivation (WoH×MDZS)

Just... why??

Zishu's intention was to take a rest from the wind and find a study room to sit and relax in.

Instead, he ran into Wuxian sitting at a low desk with the 2 named boxes, another identical box, the Yueyang Sect book open in front of him, and about a million pieces of paper.

"Oh," Zishu realized. He began to close the door. "Sorry, I'll leave-"

"No, stay. I need help making sense of this and you're from that Yueyang Sect's world."

Zishu wasn't sure about this, but cleared a place on the floor for himself to sit anyway.

Even though Wuxian'd been the one to tell Zishu to stay, he didn't acknowledge Zishu. He kept studying the pages in front of him, occasionally shooting a glare at the boxes.

"...what're you thinking about?"

"I'm wondering what's up with the hair and burned clothes."

"Oh. If it's that what you're puzzling over, then they were probably used for the ritual that got us to swap pla-"

"Well yeah, I figured that out myself, I'm not stupid." Wuxian paused before supplying, "I mean I have plenty experience with arrays and stuff. And also it was in the instructions on how to activate the array behind the waterfall- to transport someone else, prepare something of theirs before chucking ash at the array."

"The array behind the waterfall?"

"The one we took to get here."

Zishu sighed and remarked, "Well you sure had a less exciting time than us then. We had to sneak into the Golden Carp Tower's dungeons to get here."

This made Wuxian look up at last. He checked, "You snuck into- broke into the Golden Carp Tower's dungeons?"

"Yup."

"All of you?"

"...yeah?"

"Pfft-!" Wuxian covered his mouth to stifle his laughter and asked, "How many times did Lan Zhan have to copy the sect rules for that?"

"Uh... I stopped counting at 20." Zishu nodded at the door and added, "You can ask him. I think he's copying the sect rules again right now because he broke in twice."

Wuxian laughed. He shook his head fondly and remarked, "Lan Zhan really is the law-abiding Hanguang Jun. He's always so hard on himself." He nudged Zishu. "Trust me- the Lan Sect's the only one that's this ridiculously over the top with rules and shit. Yunmeng Jiang for example is a lot freer!"

"I noticed. I've also noticed it's only your husband that's so strict he really makes himself copy the rules after breaking them. Even Sizhui and Zewu Jun let themselves catch a break."

Wuxian flushed a little pink and mumbled, "He's not my husband."

"...oh?"

"What do you mean oh?!"

"You're in denial," Zishu pointed out. "Young Master Wei, there's no harm in letting you know that your Hanguang Jun has probably broken more rules over this week-long search for you than he has in 10 years. He definitely loves you. And the way you reacted to him showing up tells me it's not completely unrequited."

"I- well- anyway!" Wuxian spluttered. He cleared his throat and continued, "Anyway. The Golden Carp Tower huh... that's... interesting. I never knew them to practise dark rites..."

"Dark rites?"

"Well yeah, the stuff in here is pretty grim," Wuxian replied, tapping the book. "Experiments on the dead, test subjects, blood circles... I assume the stuff from the Golden Carp Tower would be similar enough."