THE YILING MATRIARCH

Chapter 16 : Time Immemorial - Part 9 : Slowly Sinking

Wen Ning's sister, Wen Qing, was a strong woman who was somewhat harsh on her younger brother, but Meifeng could see the brief look of panic when she had taken a stolen blade to his throat. Not only had the Wen siblings given them shelter from being found out by patrolling Wen soldiers, but... as Cheng had lost his Golden Core, Meifeng asked them to give him her core, despite their initial protest against doing so. Without her Golden Core, she would never be able to become a distinguished Cultivator like she had always dreamed for much of her life.

She wouldn't be able to save herself either if she got caught.

Leaving the following morning after Jiang Cheng was well enough to leave the confines of the room, Meifeng took him to a place she knew Cheng would be safe to gather his strength back to him in peace: the hermit sect deep within the mountains of Yiling where the Wandering Baoshen lived. As she tied a cloth ribbon around Cheng's eyes, portraying him as a blind man come to better his Golden Core, she spoke her last remaining words to him before she would wait for him to come down.

"It is not too far away, and there are no beasts to worry about. Just walk slowly and come back here once you have regained your strength. It won't be like Gusu Lan, but if you break any of the rules and make the Grandmaster mad-" Her ramblings were cut off then as Cheng stopped her with a gentle weight of his hand on her shoulder, bringing her into a warm hug that Meifeng hadn't realized she missed.

Releasing from the embrace, Meifeng pushed him in the direction Cheng needed to go up the mountain, sitting on a fallen log after he was gone from her sight. Meifeng, in her loneliness, had remembered that by now news of Yunmeng Jiang had surely reached the other sects... and Lan Wangji, who was no doubt worrying about her. In fact, she could bet five jars of Emperor's smile wine that he had gone to his elders and asked to leave Gusu to make sure she and Cheng were alright.

She had learned through Lan Xichen before that Wangji wore his heart on his sleeve. Even though it didn't show, he was very shy after growing up secluded in Gusu with his older brother and uncle, and was unable to express the big heart he had until one learned his little habits that brought out his personality. Mindlessly drawing his face with the end point of a limb without her consciously realizing what she was doing, the sound of a snapping twig was the only warning she received before seeing a glimpse of the one person she hadn't expected to see before the deep gruesome pain of an arrow ripped through her shoulder, and all she heard was the sound of mocking laughter belonging to none other than Wen Chao as he stood above her with a sneering glare down at the woman.

"Well, well... already on your knees, eh Wei Meifeng? Why don't you fight back? I thought you were this smart mouthed bitch who thought she was all that, but you aren't, are you?!" A sharp kick knocked Meifeng to the ground, causing her to taste the dirt beneath her before spitting it out. Surrounding her on all sides were a dozen blurred faces- all belonging to Wen Clansmen that obeyed every command their Young Master gave them without any hesitation- pointing their weapons at her.

Wang Lingjiao, the woman of Wen who had become Wen Chao's Mistress to raise her status from a lowly maid-servant of Wen Chao's own mother, had the gall to speak up at Meifeng's agony. "Why don't you just cut her arm off already? This is the person that owes us an arm after that mean Ziyuan hit me." At the disrespectful mention of the deceased Lady of Jiang, Meifeng felt her fingernails cut into the ground beneath her dig into the ground as Wen Chao's voice spoke up that losing an arm wasn't good enough, wanting to humiliate Wei Meifeng completely until nothing of her remained.

The off-handed way the young man spoke of breaking her energy network and melting her Golden Core caused Meifeng to stiffen briefly before remembering that nothing they would do to her would have the effect they desired since her Golden Core was already gone, but she wouldn't give them that knowledge.