"...Gege?"
To see someone so lifelessly still, whom you've been with for almost your whole life is mortifying, considering that you didn't know if it is already the last you'll see them breathing.
Jiang Cheng doesn't know what to thinkㅡno, he would rather not think anything at all.
"Gege..."
If he knows that he's hanging between the thread of life and death then tilted to the latter, he should've stayed...he should've stayed.
Lan Xichen who already went close to the redhead made a sound akin to agony, him trying to suppress his cries by biting his own hand while looking at Wei Xun.
He ignored the blood that freshly fell from his wound.
"A-Xun..." Lan Xichen calls in grief, feeling his own breath static.
"He was stabbed." Xiao Wang says, seeing the stab wound on the redhead's chest as he reached out with trembling hands.
"Who would evenㅡ"
Before Lan Xichen could ask who was merciless enough to do such thing to someone who's close to death, Jiang Cheng's voice rang out clearly with no remorse.
"Wei Wuxian...!"
Jiang Cheng's legs gave out as he plopped down on the cold floor, his head hung low and his lips quivered.
He could see the hairpin that was impaled on the older's chest. The familiar hairpin that Jiang Yanli placed on Wei Wuxian's hair together with his red ribbon.
That same hairpin is etched in the redhead like it was meant to nail him and make him rest on the bed forever.
"...Why..? Why would he?"
Indeed, why would he? Jiang Cheng is angry, aggrieved, and betrayed. Why would Wei Wuxian kill his own brother?
Kill?
...
Kill?
"Zewu-jun...don't." Jiang Cheng suddenly says, his hand being placed against his own face as he choked a sob.
He did not kill him.
His gege did not beg for death and pain, no.
He begged for salvation, for someone to end his painful, hopeless misery.
"Wei Wuxian is not to blame, Zewu-jun."
Jiang Cheng felt like if he didn't make it clear, all that he have right now, family, home, happiness, it will all be gone in a blink of an eye.
He will lose everything he loves if he just stayed silent and blamed the older.
It was like blaming a God for something that they did for what they thought is good, but got blamed for it when they were only trying to help.
"Why do you say so, Jiang-gongzi?"
Looking at the respectable Lan Xichen who was kneeling beside his dead lover and weeps, Jiang Cheng's heart couldn't help but wrench in an unfathomable emotion.
Between the two of them, Jiang Cheng is the one who knew his brothers the most, making him immediately regain his sanity back.
"Because I would do the same if I were in the same situation."
Wei Wuxian was just someone who stayed at the right time and at the right place...no...Jiang Cheng did too.
He remembered that the older looked at them with pleading eyes, he remembered the voiceless wish he had wjen he looked at the two of them.
Wei Wuxian was the only one brave enough and took the fall.
Jiang Cheng sees himself as a coward. He acknowledges it even, because he is scared.
He is scared to lose more.
"So please don't blame him, Zewu-jun. Blame someone else, blame the one who is the root of all what happened to them."
Lan Xichen needed someone to blame, Jiang Cheng is the same too, considering it was the only thing they could think of as they were only mortal human beings.
Blame someone for the sake of their beliefs and sanity.
Jiang Cheng steels himself to stand up, discreetly wiping away his tears as he marched closer to where his gege lays.
He raises his hand slowly before the tips of his fingers touched his older brother's forehead, caressing it as he slowly smiles.
"Wei Wuxian saved him. Look, the cracks are closing. Slowly, yes. But all we need to do is trust him to come back."
Jiang Cheng reached down then to hold Wei Xun's cold hands that were unfurled, "He will come back, he always will, even then."
Indeed, his gege had already came back to them when he was killed by that yellow man. Jiang Cheng is sure that his gege will come back to them in no time at all.
If not, no one knows what Jiang Cheng would do.
He grabbed the hairpin away and looked at it for a while before placing it in his chest pocket, not minding the blood that stained his clothes.
"Zewu-jun." He calls again.
He didn't wait for the older to answer his call as he spoke.
"I will leave him to you once again."
After he said that, he didn't have the time to wait as he immediately left the room. Xue Yang soon joining him with a murderous air around him.
"Find that stupid bastard. You can punch him three times to sober him up." Jiang Cheng says, glancing at Xue Yang.
"You don't need to tell me about it." He says before jumping away from a nearby window, making Jiang Cheng grin to himself before sighing a second later.
"Wanyin."
Jiang Cheng looked at the person who called him, Jin Zixuan came into view together with an infant who kept crying in his arms.
The younger scoffs, "Why does he kept crying?"
Who is the child he's carrying anyway?
"I don't really know. Maybe he wants his mother."
...Oh.
Oh.
It was his sister's child.
"Give him to me." Jiang Cheng says, his hands ready to carry the infant.
"He's quite feisty though." Jin Zixuan says even though his action says otherwise.
The moment the infant was placed on Jiang Cheng's arms, he slowly ceased his cries and slowly cooed, making both of the men look in surprise.
"How...how did you do it?" Jin Zixuan asks like a madman as he gripped the younger's shoulders tightly.
"How the hell would I know? This is the first time I held him!"
The child just simply laughed at their exchange, finding it amusing.
Jiang Cheng looks at the child in his arms, and the child looks up at him in wonder.
"What's his name?" Jiang Cheng asked, moving slowly back and forth in instinct.
"Jin Ling."
Huh, it's quite acceptable.
"Jin Ling...A-Ling...don't you find your father annoying?" Jiang Cheng tries to joke, making the infant in his arms let out a series of incoherent babbles like he was agreeing with his uncle.
Right, he is an uncle now.
"Hey! I'll tell Wei Xun about this!"
The smile on Jiang Cheng's face immediately disappeared and turned into a blank look, remembering a corpse alone in a room filled with cracks like he was a fragile relic.
"As if. He find you annoying too." He mutters, letting Jin Ling play with his point finger while he's in a trance.
The look on Jiang Cheng's face was enough to make Jin Zixuan dread.
Before he could ask, Jiang Cheng had beaten him to it.
"...What about A-Jie? Is she out of danger now?" Jiang Cheng asks almost breathlessly, since it had only been a day, two almost when everything fell apart.
"Madam Yu says she's out danger now. And she's expected to wake up once she's rested enough both from childbirth and surgery."
It was a relief. It sent a ton amount of relief on Jiang Cheng.
He thanks his sister and at the same time, proud. He thanks her for persisting, for staying alive when Wei Xun couldn't.
"What about Wei Xun? How is he?"
That question is simple yet it was enough to make Jiang Cheng spiral back on the scene earlier, to the blood curling screams the older had made and to the cries he shed out of pain.
"He..."
Jiang Cheng gulped down the lump in his throat, trying his best to stop himself from crying.
How was he supposed to say this? He was killed? Died? Murdered?
No, Jiang Cheng knew those words are not the right terms.
"Gege...passed away."
Peacefully, serene, with a smile on his crackful face.
In the end, Jiang Cheng couldn't stop his tears from falling, some fell upon Jin Ling's plump cheeks as he choked a sob.
"Gege...gege would've loved to meet you, A-Ling. Your two shishus would have fought each other to get ahold of you."
Jiang Cheng hung his head low and bit his own lips at the imagination he have. That would be good, it would be a good and beautiful memory to remember in the next few years.
Jin Zixuan stood frozen, his hands trembling at the information he received as anger and grief swirled inside him.
"You would've loved them, A-Ling."
Indeed, he would have.