Whumptober 2020: "Get it out" No more "Stop, please"
"Get it out."
Wen Qionglin blinks. "I'm sorry?"
Zidian crackles along Jiang Cheng's knuckles. He savors it. Would A-Niang prefer him to keep Wei Wuxian's core or would she rip it from his chest herself? he wonders. She always did hate how Wei Wuxian beat him in every way. "Wei Wuxian's core. Get it out."
Wen Qionglin looks around them as if to say 'Here? Now?' A yao's body lay not far away where Jiang Cheng had dispatched it before it more permanently killed the fierce corpse in front of him. Stars glint through the trees, but the darkness is lit only by Zidian's purple glow. "I can't do that, Sect Leader Jiang," Wen Qionglin says.
"Well why not?" You did it for him, lies unspoken between them.
"It was only a fifty percent chance when JieJie made the transfer," Wen Qionglin says. "I'm not my sister, and I'm not sure we should have done it in the first place." He shifts on his feet. "Healers swear to do no harm, and we clearly have."
Zidian crackles again. "Why did you then?" Jiang Cheng asks through clenched teeth.
"JieJie thought it would give us leverage to protect our family." Wen Qionglin laughs a bit as Jiang Cheng flinches back. "I don't even think she really believed it would work."
"Then why did she?" Jiang Cheng lashes out with Zidian and fries a nearby tree. "If it was against her oath and she didn't even think it would work out in her favor, Why. Did. She?"
Wen Qionglin's eyes still reflect light. They aren't truly clouded like most fierce corpses he's come across. Zidian's light flickers in his eyes and reveals the black veins crawling down his neck. Calling Zidian back, he looks to the ground and breathes. "Just get it out," he says. "Give it back to Wei Wuxian, so he can live a long and happy life with his shameless husband."
"I can't do that, Sect Leader Jiang. I am not the doctor my sister was; both of you would be without a core." Wen Qionglin looks away. "Master Wei would not like it either."
Jiang Cheng snorts. "It all comes back to him, doesn't it? You did the transfer because he asked. You won't do it because he'll hate it." He turns his back. "I don't know why I even bothered asking."
"JieJie did the transfer because she promised Yun-jie she would try to ensure our family was protected from the other Sects!" A branch snaps behind Jiang Cheng. "It had nothing to do with you or Master Wei!"
Grasping his robes just above his dantian, Jiang Cheng thinks that's somehow worse. His brother's core given to him by two Wens because another Wen had asked them to find an olive branch for their family, who would then die by his hands. He wishes he could say that he would not have done the same. "Get it out," he whispers. "Give it back." Don't let him become a reliquary of another broken hope.
"I'm sorry, Sect Leader Jiang, but I cannot."