Wei Ying snuggled into his husband's sweaty body. It was difficult to do while laying underneath him, but not impossible. "I can still walk, you know," he mentioned idly. "You're going to have to work harder once we escape this inferno."
Lan Zhan kissed the top of his lover's head. "I'll do my best. How long before your reinforcements arrive?"
"It should take them about an hour to get here, plus some time to assemble, and fight our assailants…. So… maybe another hour? Plenty of time to get another round in…."
Lan Zhan sat up and cleaned their bodies. "Plenty of time to dress and meditate and heal." He lit a fire talisman and began sorting out their clothing.
"I don't need to heal, Lan Zhan! I'm perfectly capable of doing at least four more rounds before it will start to really hurt!"
"You may be fine," the other reminded him. "But I… need to meditate."
"Does it hurt a lot still?" Wei Ying worried that he'd damaged his husband's body with his inexperience.
"A lot? No." he admitted. Upon seeing Wei Ying's concerned face, he soothed, "I will be fine in a bit. I just need to meditate for a while."
So Wei Ying allowed Lan Zhan to dress in peace and begin meditation. Once he was sure the other was deep in a trance, the Yiling Patriarch began preparations of his own….
Pain! Li MeiLi screamed upon awakening. My arms! My back! My Gods! "A'Chen! Are you all right? A'Chen!" Li MeiLi looked over at the barely visible dark head lying so still on her left shoulder. Her clothing felt sticky and tacky against her skin. I can't move my fingers. I can't feel my hand! The young woman started hyperventilating; tears and snot streaming down her face. With great difficulty, she managed to regain enough control to light a few candles, and started screaming again upon seeing her free hand covered in drying blood. "A'Chen! Wake up," she begged. She struggled to get out from under his weight and felt something warm and wet trickle down her back. Pain! Dear gods this hurts! "Damn you, Lan Huan!" she cursed. "I can't reach the acupoints on my back! You need to wake up!" Sitting up, she cursed again as the hand that had been trapped under Lan Huan's body began to regain feelings. It felt like she was being stabbed by thousands of tiny needles. She reached out with a bloody hand to take his pulse and bit her lip to stop another scream as another scab broke under the strain and more blood started to drip down. His pulse was thready and weak, but he was alive.
Li MeiLi gathered her strength and pushed her husband's body over; that man had attacked from the back so his wounds must be there. But the robes were too bloody to see anything. She forced herself to stand and limp over to Shouyue lying on the floor. "I need you to work with me here," she told the sword. "I don't know how to use you properly, so don't get mad at me, OK? I just need to see his back, and you're what I've got." Like Lan XiChen had taught her, she wrapped spiritual energy around the sword and grabbed the hilt. Again, that noise filled her head. "Just help me cut his robes off; I need to see where he's hurt," she begged and watched, astonished, as Shuoyue leapt out of her hand to its master. With a few short flicks, the robes and shirt were slit from neck to knees and down along each arm. Then it resheathed itself. "I thought you didn't understand words," she muttered. She carefully peeled the now rags down and swore loudly each time she reopened a wound. She pressed and prodded looking for the acupoints which would help her to cut off the blood flowing from his wounds.
With that done, she shed her own bloody outer and inner robes and breathed heavily, trying to control her own pain. Ignoring that her shirt and trousers were also saturated with blood, she limped to the door, cringing as each step burned her back, only to find it locked from the outside. She hit it as loudly as she could, crying for help, until there was fresh blood streaming down her wrists. They're not coming. Why aren't they coming? Li MeiLi rested her forehead against the door, trying to think clearly. I need water for cleaning. And clean cloth to bind him up. And medicine to help him heal…. There was no medicine she could see doing a quick search of the boxes and chests in the room. She found a small basin of water which she supposed was to be used to wash their faces. She used a bit to wash the blood from her hands, and used the rest to wash his back. She pulled out an old but clean Wei disciple robe from her clothing chest and began tearing it into strips which she used to wrap his torso as best she could. Twelve stab wounds, some shallow and some deep, covered his back. There were another four on his shoulders and upper arms. Then she tied a few strips of cloth as best she could around her back and shoulder, in a poor attempt to bind her own wounds.
Exhausted from her efforts, Li MeiLi fell onto the floor. Almost blind from pain, she started sobbing again. "Help us! Somebody help us!" she cried over and over until the pain took over, and she mercifully passed out again.
Jiang Cheng moaned. His chest hurt. His stomach hurt. His back hurt. His legs hurt. What the Hell happened? "Don't sit up yet," a harsh voice ordered.
"Grandmaster?" he asked groggily, opening his eyes to see a disheveled Lan Qiren standing over him.
The grandmaster brushed off a messenger butterfly. "That boy needs to concentrate on rescuing himself and not looking for us to rescue him! He's seventeen already! You weren't this hesitant at seventeen. And the gods know his fathers weren't!"
"What? How?" Jiang Cheng asked. He wasn't exactly sure what he wanted answered.
"Koi Tower is burning. I found you in an alleyway outside your room. Apparently they treated you as an archery butt and left you for dead. I've healed you as best I can, but it's best if you stay out of trouble for at least another few hours."
"Wen Qing? Is she all right?" Jiang Cheng's heart spasmed at the memory of his wife struggling to breathe.
"I haven't seen her," Lan Qiren stated.
"I left her in our room; I was trying to get help…."
Lan Qiren sighed. "Your room is destroyed. The roof had already collapsed by the time I found you. If she was still inside… I'm sorry."
"She should be protected…. My brother gave her…. Wei WuXian? Is he all right? The others? " Tears were streaming down his face.
"I don't know. I found you first, and you were dying. I've spent the last hour healing you. Your nephew will be fine. The juniors were given poisoned wine to drink. A mild poison!" he added as Jiang Cheng tried to sit up. "They're expelling it even as we speak. They'll be completely fine in a day or so. Jin RuLan's room is under guard, most likely by the same faction that tried to kill you. They're safe for now. XiChen and WangJi have not yet responded to SiZhui, though…. Hopefully they're doing what I'm doing…."
"Which is what?"
"Letting the boy think we're dead. He'll be more cautious dealing with those guards if he doesn't think a rescue is coming."
"Is a rescue coming?"
"I doubt it. This faction is organized and hit multiple targets at once. Apparently, there are a lot of people not happy about the return of the Yiling Patriarch and the Wen."
Jiang Cheng eased himself into a sitting position and groaned with the ensuing pain. "Are you sure they've targeted Wei WuXian?"
"His room was on fire, too. With about a hundred men surrounding it, so they think he's still inside…."
"I feel like this is cheating," Lan Zhan said after a while. Wei Ying was sitting on Lan Zhan's lap in the dark again, the fire talisman having flamed out a while before.
"What? Because we're not out there getting killed? And instead waiting to be rescued?" Wei Ying smiled. "If all they had was swords, I'd say let's go. You and me against a hundred men would be winnable. Against a hundred archers? The last time I won that fight only because Wen Ning was there…." Wei Ying held up the little silver ball on his new tassel even though neither of them could see it. "This little ball is a marvelous invention. Hua can communicate with every senior disciple, individually or as a whole, at once no matter where they are. And they, in turn, can communicate directly with him. They'll land in Koi Tower and they're going to rescue A' Yuan first. Then they'll work their way over to us."
"You're having them rescue us last." Lan Zhan stated.
"Of course!" Wei Ying grinned. He ran a loving hand over the embroidery on his husband's robe. "A'Yuan may have chosen a phoenix as our symbol at random because I was reborn... However… my opponents seem to have forgotten that you can't kill a phoenix with fire…."
Lan SiZhui made a decision: he wasn't going to sit around crying anymore. "XiaoDan," he called out. "Give some spiritual energy to your brother."
"Why?"
"We're going to escape." He stood up and faced his peers. "Pair up," he ordered. "The sicker ones give energy to the healthier ones so they can expel the poison faster."
OuYang XiaoDan protested. "I'm not that sick, LanGege. I can fight, too."
Lan SiZhui glared at her. "You're staying here."
"Because I'm a girl?" OuYang XiaoDan glared right back.
He started counting off on his fingers. "Because you're a girl. Because you're my friend's little sister, and he'll kill me if anything happens to you. Because I don't want you with me. Because I need someone I can trust to stay here and take care of the others. Take your pick." He ignored her protests. He ignored all of their protests and whining about which ones were healthier than the others. In the end, there were seven boys standing at his side, paler than normal from the effects of over-indulging and expelling poison, but healthy enough. "Pick a partner," he ordered, ignoring that he wasn't the eldest of the group and therefore shouldn't be the one issuing orders. "OuYang XiaoDan, you're going to scream that we're dying. All of us, or just one, I don't care. But make it sound realistic. Like you're really scared we're dying in here."
"And what's that supposed to do?" Jin Ling asked.
"The poison was supposed to incapacitate us, not kill. Which means we're supposed to be alive in the morning when this thing is over. I can pretty much guarantee someone will come investigate," Lan SiZhui supposed. "Anyways, they come in, we kill as many as we can, and escape. Stay with your partner. Fight as many here as you can, but the goal is to get help for the ones left in here. Find out who's been targeted and who's alive, and stuff. Master Wei, HanGuang-Jun, ZeWu-Jun, Jiang WanYin, your parents. Find someone you can trust and fight with them." With that, OuYang XiaoDan hugged her brother tight, went towards a far window, and started screaming that her brother and Jin RuLan were dying.
The plan went as well as one could expect from a seventeen year old with zero experience in creating escape plans. Two men in black did come into Jin Ling's room to investigate the 'dying' boys and were promptly overwhelmed and killed. But as the eight healthier boys spilled out into the courtyard, the ones guarding the building were already running towards them, swords drawn, alerted by the dying cries of their comrades. And there were far more attackers than defenders.
Shit! Lan SiZhui yelled in his head. Eight teenagers against almost thirty experienced adults? This wasn't like fighting fierce corpses or monsters; these men moved fast and made horrible sounding noises. Their bodies spewed sticky yet slippery blood when they were hit. He ducked and whirled and slashed and blocked and wished that he had half of his fathers' abilities. There were a few of the attackers down and not moving, but his side was faring worse. Two of his friends were lying on the ground and only one was crying. Jin Ling's left side was dark with blood, and his own left hand was having trouble holding onto his scabbard because it was slippery with blood. He just hoped it wasn't his own…. But the defenders kept going. Six against twenty. Five against fifteen. Just as Lan SiZhui was ready to feel like they might actually not lose, the courtyard was overrun by another group in black. His sword arm was already feeling numb, but now the rest of him went numb, too…. We're going to die here. Father… Baba… I'm sorry. He knuckled away a new set of tears, and swerved to stand back to back with Jin Ling. I'm sorry, A'Ling. "Jin RuLan, when you find an opening, run," he ordered. "You're a Sect leader; you cannot fall here. Fall back, find your men, and come back for us."
Jin Ling swore through his own tears. "I'm not leaving you here ZhuiGe! I'm staying with you until we kill every single one of these bastards!"
Lan SiZhui yelled back. "I'm your senior! Do as I command! Go find help before we're all dead!" He lashed out, sword swinging through the guts of two opponents. He gagged upon seeing their entrails spill out. "Go!" he yelled out again, and screamed as a blade passed though his guard slicing his thigh.
"Gege!" Jin Ling cried out feeling his cousin stumble against his back.
"Go!" Lan SiZhui ordered through his teeth.
Jin Ling slashed at the neck of his opponent, and seeing a way out, started running, one hand holding his side. "I'll come back for you!"
"Just stay alive." Resolute that he would take as many of them with him as he could, Lan SiZhui embraced his fate and attacked with renewed vigor.
Pain! Lan XiChen awoke gasping and crying in agony. Every minuscule movement burned hotter and harder. He grit his teeth and forced himself to stop keening. Li MeiLi! She was lying so still…. He reached out to check her pulse: unsteady but strong. He catalogued his own injuries: headache, back and shoulders on fire, stomach all right, Core sluggish but fine, legs…. Legs… I can't feel my legs! He twisted enough to see that yes, they were still attached. But he felt no sensation. Couldn't feel the floor. Couldn't wiggle his toes. Nothing.
He coughed lightly from the smoke and managed to hold back a scream of pain as his body complained. Smoke? Looking around again, what he had thought was daylight peeking in through the windows was actually flames. LiLi… I'm so sorry. He dragged himself closer to his wife and began transferring spiritual energy.
"A'Chen," she murmured, eyes blinking open and hazy with pain. "I'm sorry…. I couldn't find any medicine. I don't know how to heal you…. They locked us in, and I can't…. I tried to call for help…."
"It's fine, LiLi," Lan XiChen tried to put as much hope into his voice as he could. "I'm giving you spiritual energy. That will help your wounds heal faster. When you feel well enough to stand for a bit, take Shuoyue, cut a hole in the wall, and go get help."
"No!" she cried. "Show me how to transfer energy to you. Then you can go get help!"
"LiLi… my love… You need to be the one to go…," he pleaded. "I… he hurt my legs really badly…. I can't feel them."
Li MeiLi shook her head. "I checked. There are no wounds on your legs."
"LiLi… I can't feel my legs. I can't move them. You have to go. The room is on fire; you need to leave," he ordered.
"No… no… no… I can't leave you. I'll… I'll drag you out!"
"You know you can't do that," Lan XiChen said sadly. "Even if you were in peak physical health, you'd have trouble dragging me." He reached out and cupped her face. "I love you, my LiLi. More than my life."
"I'm not leaving you here to die!" she screeched.
"You have to leave me…. I can't walk and you can't carry me." He sighed and coughed again. "I'm their target. You should be able to escape. Find WangJi and WuXian. They'll be able to save me."
"I am not leaving you to die," Li MeiLi repeated, coughing in the smoke.
He coughed again and bit back a scream of pain and anguish. "Then leave me to find help!"
She crawled closer and rested her forehead against his. "I'm sorry…. I'm the reason this is all happening. I shouldn't have married you…. I'm sorry. It's all my fault."
"It's not your fault," he sighed. "Now… please leave me and go."
"It is my fault! When I woke up earlier, the room wasn't on fire. They blocked the door, so I couldn't leave…. I hit on it and yelled for help! If I hadn't done that, they wouldn't have set the building on fire! They must have thought we were dead until I did that. And now they're making sure of it… It's my fault…. If I had just stayed quiet…."
"It's not your fault," he repeated. "We did what we did out of love and respect. They did what they did for their own reasons. You are not responsible for their actions. Now, please go!" he begged.
Li MeiLi pulled away and coughed. "They want me dead, too. Are they still out there? Can you check?"
Lan XiChen sent his awareness outside only to discover the building was surrounded by men. "They're still there," he admitted and started coughing. And felt something spitting out of his mouth: blood. But not the blood caused by a qi deviation…. This was coming from his lungs….
Li MeiLi crawled the short distance to lay down next to his body as a section of the ceiling fell. She tenderly wiped the blood from his lips. Tears were streaming down her face, from fear or the smoke, she didn't know. "I love you," she stated before claiming his lips with her own.
He did his best to tuck her under him, a futile attempt to protect her from the flames. "I love you, too." As the fire burned around them, he held her tight. "I will find you in our next life," he promised as his vision dimmed and his last strength gave out. But there was no one aware to hear him anymore.
