THE YILING MATRIARCH

Chapter 38 : Of honorable brothers

A/N: I can't believe how long it's been since I was on here! The days are going by so fast I can hardly keep up with everything going on at the same time. Thankfully I'm able to multitask some of it, so here's the next chapter!

Oh and to the someone who commented that I misspelled someone's name, I am writing it based on how I've seen it spelled.
----------------------------------------------------------

Warm light flickered across their faces as they sat around the flaming tongues that burned slowly like the information they now were troubled by. Lan Xichen had been alarmed about the current series of events ever since his brother had told him of the things they had seen in their travels; first it had been the murders at Mo Village, then it was the distressing report of the grave-digger, and now it was the unrest involving Yi City and Xue Yang.

All of these things had led to one final and complicated clue they had somewhat pieced together about the Nie Clan and Jin Clan. It, however, made Zewu-Jun's head feel as if it would split as it pointed a rather dim light on someone he considered a brother.

Meanwhile, Meifeng was thinking along a similar path of thought, considering the leader of the Jin clan, Jin Guangyao. As the third of the "Venerated triad", the person would know all about the Nie clan's secrets and how they hid their sabers. Now that she thought about more, the masked individual who had suddenly appeared at the Nie sect's Saber Hall only to steal a specific body which led them further onto their quest for the other missing body parts.

Only someone with intimate knowledge of both the Lan sect's fighting style could've also known how to counter their unique fighting style, which few outside the sect knew; the Lan were very private people after all.

Lan Xichen's face contorted in denial, not believing that his friend and honorary brother would do what Meifeng was insinuating; he had been in Qing Nie the entire month discussing important matters with him! Xichen even said so, pointing out that Nie Huaisang had an alibi that would argue against him being the gravedigger she and Lan Wangji met at the Cheng family's residence. If a teleportation talisman had been used as Meifeng counterattacked, then the chance of it being Nie Huisang lowered since he had never shown any signs of learning to cultivate this specific technique.

"Additionally, the technique requires immense amounts of spiritual power, yet we have Night-Hunted together just a few days ago and he was in perfect health."

All three stood in complete silence for a moment, both Wangji and Meifeng contemplating what they would say next to hopefully make the elder Jade brother see sense in that his friend was the possible mastermind of a grand plot that had essentially killed Meifeng and caused many people to suffer. As the minutes of stillness between them lengthened, so did the strain grow in size until even Xichen was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

"I... understand that there are many who hold some misunderstandings about him due to certain circumstances, but... I do want to believe the man I've known throughout these years is not the type to do as you've suggested. I've put too much of my trust in him to believe it."

Meifeng nodded in understanding, seeing the reasons why the man believed this, but there were too many things that had gone wrong at the same time to be a simple coincidence despite there being nothing too suspicious. First, it was Yue Chang's cruel actions killing all of those people with the Stygian Tiger Seal, and when the Nie clan was forced to let him go, Nie Mingjue suddenly died of Qi deviation. It was no secret that the Nie sect was at its highest peak when Mingjue suddenly fell, allowing the clan to fall apart and let the Jin sect rise to power in their stead.

Despite how sad it was losing such a man so quickly, was the truth of the matter really that simple?

She didn't think so.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~