They’re filthy and exhausted as they stumble out of the oppressive shadow of the Burial Mounds. The older cultivators are trembling like leaves, wheezing, and swaying where they stand, while the juniors—Jingyi included—are merely tired to the bone. He’s pretty sure he’s never fought as hard as he just did back there and he knows that if it wasn’t for Hanguang-jun and Senior Wei, none of them would be alive now.
Speaking on Senior Wei…
”Sizhui!” Jingyi yelps as his friend turns around and runs back up the path they just scrambled down.
”Let him go,” Teacher Lan sighs, wiping a shaky hand over his face. He, too, is exhausted and there’s a grey tint on his face. Jingyi frowns—it’s an unspoken truth in the Cloud Recesses that Teacher Lan never fully recovered from the injuries he got during the Wen attack on Gusu, and his brief encounter with the sabre spirit hadn’t exactly helped.
”You should rest,” Jingyi says.
Teacher Lan gives him a sour look. ”We all should rest and replenish our spiritual energy. I’m not the only one affected.”
”Well, I don’t care about the others,” Jingyi says.
”Lan Jingyi—”
”You know what I mean,” Jingyi interrupts. ”Yes, of course I care about everyone as a proper cultivator should, but none of the others is our Teacher Lan, and since you’re our only Teacher Lan, I’m nagging at you.” He rummages around his qiankun pouch and comes up with one only slightly squished qi-replenishing pill. ”Take it,” he says.
Teacher Lan grumbles but takes the pill. Jingyi is glad it doesn’t take long for the greyness to start to fade.
”Sorry about my volume up there,” he says, standing next to Teacher Lan and staring intently at the path disappearing into the swirling resentful energy of the Burial Mounds.
Teacher Lan clears his throat. ”Your reasoning was accurate,” he begrudgingly says. He doesn’t comment on the volume of said reasoning, which is pretty much what Jingyi has come to expect by now. He’s not exactly sure why Teacher Lan lets him get away with so much but he’s not complaining. (He also has an itching feeling that it might have something to do with Senior Wei.)
There’s commotion from the shadows and in the next moment, Hanguang-jun and Sizhui help a barely conscious Senior Wei down and to the others.
”Oh, he’s alive,” Teacher Lan mutters dourly as Senior Wei’s knees give out and he collapses on Hanguang-jun’s arms.
Teacher Lan lets out a weary sigh, turns around, and says over his shoulder, ”Come along, Jingyi.”