Lilium {Mo Dao Zu Shi}

Tulip [Chapter 15]

Yu ZiYuan smiled painfully, "It really, really all boils down to me, doesn’t it?"
"What?" Jiang Cheng looked confused at his mother. Even now, he had a hard time believing this was his mother.

"Back then, my last order before death to Wei WuXian, was to protect you and A-Li." She spoke with a hoarse voice, tears from her eyes threatening to fall down again, "Back then, I did that. It really affected his psyche. And it just...all boiled down to..."

Jiang Cheng picked up on what she meant, and instantly hugged her, "Mother, it’s not just you. I was to blame as well. I...I was reckless and- and I did bad things too. I...I blamed him for everything when he wasn’t at fault. It just...sigh...I still can't face him...I still get so angry when I see him, at him, at myself, at everything..." Jiang Cheng's face showed all the hurt he felt.

Yu ZiYuan still tried to process the revelation that she was responsible for...everything. This. Their strained relationship. Their pain. And this pain that they couldn’t get rid of.

"How did you lose your core?" Yu ZiYuan finally asked, "I mean, how were you caught?"

Jiang Cheng gulped, "The Wen sect found me."
"Impossible. There is no way A-Xian would have left you alone for a long enough time for them to find you, neither would he have gone far enough."

'Fuck.' Jiang Cheng couldn’t help cursing in his mind.
"A-Cheng, you are hiding something from me. Something you are not telling me."

"I-It's true. Wei WuXian was buying medicines for us, and then in the middle, the Wen sect found me." Jiang Cheng spoke, averting his eyes.

"If I know A-Xian well, he definitely had hidden you in a spot where the Wens couldn’t have seen you." Yu ZiYuan challenged, her eyes narrowing, suddenly fear building in them, "You would have fought back."
"I was outnumbered."
"Even so, A-Xian would have found you after coming back, right?"

It took time to capture a whole person and actually have the person move. Wei WuXian definitely would have made it in time.

"A-Cheng, you deliberately lured them away from A-Xian, didn’t you?" Yu ZiYuan's face scrunched up in hurt, this time her eyes no longer seemed to be able to hold in her tears anymore.

"..." Jiang Cheng said nothing. That was enough to tell that she was right.
"You lured them to yourself, because you saw them approaching the place A-Xian was buying medicines in, and you couldn’t.....you couldn’t bring yourself to lose him...and-"

[Damn, if only the cultivation world had as many braincells as she does, things would have been easier.]

"What?" There was a third voice that came out of the room.

It was Wei WuXian. His eyes were wide open, hands trembling. His body shook.

Yu ZiYuan looked towards the door only to see Wei WuXian standing, shaking on his spot. She cursed internally.

"How much of that did you-" Yu ZiYuan couldn't finish that sentence when Wei WuXian stormed into the room, rules be damned, "Jiang WanYin, what did you do?" His voice was commanding, and yet still full of fear.

He sounded angry, pained, hurt.

Jiang Cheng immediately questioned him, scowling slightly, "Didn't Mother tell that this was between the two of us? Why did you come all of a sudden?"
"I came to check in, quite some time has passed and your disciples were asking about whether everything was alright or not. So I came to check a bit. I would have knocked, but then I heard what you guys were talking about." Wei WuXian didn't waste his time trying to stall. He looked at Jiang Cheng with an angry gaze, which made Jiang Cheng feel immensely uneasy. This same expression, he was sure he also had it when he talked to Wei WuXian three months ago in the GuanYin temple.