A/N: Hello all! So instead of working on other things, I decided to work on this instead! (Don't worry, A Mother's Love is still an on-going fic!) I'm not sure how much I will do with this story, but I hope you enjoy it! This first chapter was inspired by a tumblr prompt/one-shot fanfic that I now, for some reason, CAN'T FIND, and have forgotten the name of, but will include once I do (description of which I will include in the end notes, apologies!). I do not own The Untamed or Mo Dao Zu Shi. This is a fanfic, etc.

Chapter 1: Héhuā chí

He stopped in his tracks.

"Shijie…"

"Jiang Cheng! A-Cheng! Didi…"

Jiang Cheng stretched a hand out towards his sister, begging the ghost to be real, that it could stay a little longer, and not be exorcized from his sight. A-jie was just as he'd last seen her, before… so beautiful and kind, dressed in lavender and gold. Why was she here? Haunting some little-known garden path of Koi Tower? She looked him over worriedly, taking in the blood and dirt that covered his clothes, and quickened her pace towards him. He couldn't move.

"A-Cheng, are you alright?! Is any of this yours?"

He could only shake his head at the apparition, still too frozen for words. Jiang Yanli sighed, looking momentarily relieved. Though her movements seemed careful, as if she was in pain. He couldn't do this right now, even as all he wanted was desperately to hold her. But he didn't dare. Couldn't take the pain for his arms to pass through her. If only she were still alive.

At least he couldn't see the killing blow. He hadn't seen it land, then... Only spun around to see her fall, catching her, as a soldier denounced her murderer. Felt the betrayal and despair as keenly as the blade that went through her. As if it had stabbed himself.

The truth he hadn't seen coming. Becoming the stranger's last words. Jiang disciples had rushed a-jie to Koi Tower, but they'd been too late. Afterwards, by the time he arrived, she was already gone. He couldn't even bring himself to see her body…and now she was standing before him. As if nothing had happened, as if it were all a nightmare that could easily be woken up from.

She looked over at the crowd of cultivators behind him, each in a state much like his own. Though there'd been no deaths, and surprisingly few serious wounds, it was not a reassuring sight. Covered as they were in the blood and filth of a land witness to the worst horrors of man.

She pursed her lips, eyebrows wrinkled in concern. It was a face he'd seen so many times growing up. So often directed to her beloved younger brothers. One of whom was currently missing from view.

"A-Cheng…is a-Xian okay? Where is he?"

Jiang Cheng choked, the tears he'd been fighting before now falling from his eyes. But even as he did, he felt a surge of anger, Zidian sparking madly. How dare he!? Even after everything, a-jie would ask about him now. And the pain laced through him again.

He was supposed to be his brother. And in the end…he hadn't been.

Jiang Yanli looked at her little brother again, eyes widening at his tears, and reached for his cheek.

"a-Cheng?"

Behind her, noise came from beyond the bend in the path. A set of hurried footsteps revealed a harried looking maid dressed in cream and gold.

"Young Madam Jin! You only just woke up! You shouldn't be up and about yet. Sect Leader said you were to stay inside."

"Nonsense! It's been two days and she hasn't gone far. The fresh air will do her and a-Xuan good." Madam Jin's voice cracked through the air like a whip as she rounded the corner, scowling at the maid, moving at a much slower pace as she supported the pale wane man on her arm.

It was with their appearance that he felt a-jie's very warm, very solid, very real fingertips brush the side of his face.

Jiang Yanli cradled the side of his head in her palm, eyes pressed with concern. Just like she had all those years before, after finding him in a hole, lost in the dark, unable to climb out on his own. As she'd done many times since then.

"a-Cheng, are you alright?"

Madam Jin snorted. "I think a better question is where has he been?" She looked the cultivators over disdainfully. "Off gallivanting on some disastrous nighthunt no doubt, not even once coming to visit his ailing sister. I'd expect such tomfoolery from a servant's son, but not a boy from the Yu bloodline."

A-Li looked back at Madam Jin as Jiang Cheng stood there, quivering, mind reeling. She lowered her hand to his shoulder, bracing her weight slightly against him. Her breathing a little labored from rushing forward to greet him.

"Mother-in-law, I'm sure my brothers had a very good reason. The three of us would never stay away from each other in a time of need. A-Cheng's got so many responsibilities now, wherever he's been, it must have been important. What matters is that he's here now" She smiled towards her brother reassuringly, before looking back at Madam Jin. "And it must have been very hard for a-Xian to wrestle the corpses under control, when some other demonic cultivator was actively fighting him. I'm sure he's just recuperating. And he's got that little one to take care of too. He'll come soon. Afterall, he was invited. Maiden Wen is probably just bullying him into taking care of himself. She sounds quite fierce in his letters."

A-jie's alive. A-jie's alive. A-jie's alive-

"Oh, that reminds me." She reached into her robes, pulling out a stack of folded paper from an inner pocket. "I'd promised I'd pass these on to you." She pressed the letters into his hand when he didn't immediately take them. The familiar scrawl staring up at them both.

A shock of cold went through him. Registering her words. What it meant for a-jie to be standing before him. He shied away from the thought, from her touch, even as it welled inside him.

He'd had a very good reason-

Jiang Cheng started, whirling, as a voice shouted behind him, instinctively taking a protective stance between it and his sister. Unable to think.

Is this what the elder thought when surrounded by mad dogs on every side? No wonder pretty names like 'Little Love' had never reassured him. He wasn't even sure what a-jie'd just given him.

Panic, fear, horror…

Don't think his name, don't say his name, please. Maybe then it'll all be over, maybe then, none of this would be real…

He refused to think the thought that was rising like sick in his mind. That he'd…

"Why do you talk like you defend him?! That demon slaughtered hundreds at Nightless city!"

Jiang Yanli looked towards the speaker, confused, but with a touch of anger in her voice. "a-Xian would never slaughter anyone. He came to talk everyone down; he was only defending himself!"

"That monstrous Yiling Partirarch struck first! Sneaking from the shadows, everyone knows this!"

"Actually…" an Ouyang disciple spoke up, cowering slightly at the other cultivator's glare. "Technically speaking, it was that archer who struck first…"

A GusuLan disciple spoke up from the back where they stood supporting an injured Jin soldier, looking calmly skeptical. The healer had come to monitor the patient as an act of good will, while the rest of their sect had gone home. He nodded to Jiang Yanli, unable to give a formal bow, trying to clarify the situation, inquiring at what he thought the most dangerous insinuation. His voice the perfect example of polite confusion.

"Excuse me, young Madam Jin, but you said that there was a second demonic cultivator?"

Many of the surrounding cultivators started, only now noticing the physical similarities between the woman before them and the Jiang sect leader, the blood red tassel of their recent victory hanging limply at his back.

Perhaps a-jie was confused. Yes, maybe it wasn't true. He wasn't sure what would be worse: for her to be right, or for her to be wrong…

Jiang Yanli turned towards the speaker. Her voice clear and utterly certain.

"Yes, there was. Wei Wuxian was trying to subdue the corpses before I received my injury. But they were struggling against him, not all of them were obeying. And when I found him in the crowd he wasn't playing, had Chenqing no-where near his mouth, but a dizi could be heard clearly echoing through the courtyard." She cocked her head to the side. "It was obvious to anyone who was looking." The Lan cultivator frowned in response.

Another cultivator turned to his shixiong, "If young Madam Jin is still alive, doesn't that mean Wei Wuxian still injured her? And in cold blood, no less? Why would she still be defending him?"

Jiang Yanli straightened, turning towards the voice in a manner so polite it was scary.

"I got hurt when a man tried to stab my little brother in the back, and I pushed him out of the way. Wei Wuxian would never do anything to hurt me. My injury was the fault of my own actions. Tell them, Jiang Cheng."

But Jiang Cheng couldn't move, let alone breathe to make words.

No. No, no no, no no no…It couldn't be…please no…

Sect Leader Yao scoffed, calling loudly, his voice like a rude gesture.

"A soft-hearted maiden defending her shidi. Pay her no mind. Her husband, not even cold in his grave and she shields his killer. Disgraceful. Perhaps those rumours were true after all. My sympathies to Sect Leader Jiang and the state of his house."

He gestured in a facsimile of honesty at the others to carry on by. Like he was trying to shield the Jiangs from embarrassment, rather than snidely drawing attention to it. Reframing the situation to better cooperate with his own designs. Madam Jin's nostrils flared.

"Her words are not worth listening to. Silly creature. She should be rejoicing! Now that that demon is-"

But Jiang Cheng didn't want to listen.

Jiang Cheng could still see it. Hear it. A tiny little lotus pond, impossibly blooming on a mountain of death. The splash of color brilliant in the dusty barren landscape, a disdainful mockery of hope. The sounds of crashing and screaming, and the bone-chilling roaring of corpses. The scent of blood so heavy in the air, as fire consumed the delicate blossoms. Their sweet smell unsettling, it didn't belong here. Even as it turned acrid. Reminding him of another burning, fueling his anger. The smoke then burnt away by the ozone scent of Zidian. But even his mother's ring couldn't wash away the scent of blood and death as Jiang Cheng fought his way through the sea of corpses, that were keeping between him and his brother. He could still feel it. How hard he'd tried to reach him. How in the face of his anger, Wei Wuxian had only smiled as warm and bright as always before pushing him away. How Wei Wuxian had raised the Stygian Tiger Seal. How he had shattered it, causing the corpses to turn. How Wei Wuxian is-how he was-

"-finally, dead."

He closed his eyes.

Jiang Yanli fell to her knees with a scream, her hand clutching at Jiang Cheng as she fell.

"No, no, it isn't true. Didi tell them…"

The motion knocked the legendary ghost flute from his belt. Chenqing fell with a clatter onto the cobbled path. Falling between them. Creating a silence louder than any words could be. The black bamboo stark upon the white stone. Dried blood caught in its scarlet tassel.

The shiny surface reflected the indentation of many teeth marks, in what was now an evening light. The warmth and light of the sun, having quickly left them behind. Darkness falling on the land. Jiang Yanli picked the dizi up with shaking hands, looking up at her youngest brother. But he refused to meet her gaze.

"Jiang Cheng…?"

The maid rushed forwards, trying to pull her to rights. But Jiang Yanli batted her hands away, refusing to release the dizi. Keeping herself upright by her hold on her brother's legs. Staring up at her younger brother.

"Jiang Cheng…please. Where's a-Xian? Where's a-Yuan?"

Madam Jin's voice cracked through the air like a bolt of lightning. Now on top of their group with her slow-moving companion. Her voice echoed like thunder in the silent garden. Her face a look of utter outrage.

"What are you saying?! Who told you that my son is dead? That Wei Wuxian killed a-Li?!"

Sect Leader Yao, too foolish to know when not to be brave, responded in shocked disbelief. "Madam Jin! Surely, to think! You must know that Wei Wuxian killed Jin Zixuan at the Qiongqi Pass two weeks past?!"

Many backed away from Sect Leader Yao, at the look Madam Jin gave to him. She stared at him like she had never seen a more loathsome and imbecilic being. The weight of her spiritual energy more terrifying than anything they'd ever felt in the demonic cultivator's presence.

It was only then that they got a clear look at the man standing beside her. Creating gasps of astonishment, as those amongst them recognized the identity beneath the sickly visage.

"I will not ask again. Who told you such things?"

Beside her, dark eyes glared at the assembled cultivators, forcing their gaze into each and every sightline. Shining fierce and dangerous in the pallid face that held them. The glimmering coldness that was now held in their depths matching the tone of his voice. Brought forth by their own words. They were a promise of retribution. For his wife, for their kin.

"Wei Wuxian saved my life," said Jin Zixuan.

He stepped forward, standing free and tall beside his wife. Looking past Jiang Cheng as if he were not there, as Jiang Cheng looked ahead, unable to meet a-jie's eyes. "I would have his slanderer."

Jiang Cheng clenched his fist. More than slander had been done this night.

"It was Jin Guangshan"

Jiang Cheng's voice came out in barely a whisper. But it still felt too loud, too heavy in the garden. The words broken and bleeding, as if this one revelation, encapsulating so many more, could shear away the surrounding bushes. Shatter their life as they'd known it.

The sweet scent of Lotus could be smelt faintly, carried on a distant breeze.

"Jin Guangshan told us. He ordered the siege on Burial Mounds."

He couldn't do this. He had to.

"There were no survivors".

...

A/N:

So, as stated in the above, this first chapter was inspired by an ask-prompt/one-shot fanfic that is on tumblr and I now can't find. (Apologies to the author! If you recognize it, please let me know so I can properly credit it!) The tumblr prompt/one-shot is about Jiang Cheng returning to Koi Tower after the siege of Burial Mounds and Wei Wuxian's death. Upon arriving to Koi Tower, by chance, he runs into Madam Jin, Jiang Yanli, and Jin Zixuan in the garden, with the latter two very much alive. Madam Jin, Jiang Yanli, and Jin Zixuan had no idea that the siege was taking place or that no one else knew that Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan were actually alive. Jin Guangshan had hid that fact in order to orchestrate the siege, telling everyone his son and daughter-in-law were dead at Wei Wuxian's hand. And Jiang Cheng had believed him. It also goes in depth with Jiang Cheng's pov of his brother's death and his trying to reconcile the 'monster' that his brother 'has' become with the person he used to know and love, his own involvement with the siege, and then later discovering that Wei Wuxian had never betrayed them at all. (It's implied in the fic that Wei Wuxian, like everyone else, also thought Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan were dead and blamed himself). Very well written and an intriguing, tragic premise.

The chapter titles in this fic are created using Google Translate, so if they're incorrect...that's why.

Héhuā chí means "Lotus Pond".

Arrayed: meaning "to display or arrange (things) in a particular way", "to dress someone in (the clothes specified)", "(in law) to empanel (a jury)".

Empanel a jury: 'the process of selecting the proper jurors to sit in trial of a particular case.'

'A (magical) array.'

Thank you for reading, and I'll see you next chapter! :)