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“Wei Wuxian—” a shout echoed as a purple-robed cultivator stepped forward.
“Hello Jiang Cheng” Wei Wuxian said with a smirk from the cage villagers had thrown him in. Even from here, he could smell the anger from his pack-sibling. He lowered his arm, making sure the incessant twitch of his fingers was well hidden by the loose clothes.
He’d grown up getting whipped by Zhidan on the regular and yet— the electrical shock from the collars were so frequent he was beginning to worry about developing chronic tremors. The collar didn’t just react to Wei Wuxian's blatant call of demonic energy, even if it triggered the worst shocks. It also reacted to the remnants that had absorbed into his skin from years spent on the Burial Mount. Concretively, that meant that at any hour of the day or night, the collar could decide Wei Wuxian was ’too demonic’ and send an impulsion as punishment.
At this point, his own scent should have reeked of omega distress— but Wei Wuxian had lost his scent glands long ago.
“You did it again, didn’t you?” Jiang Cheng growled, acting more like a territorial alpha than the beta he was.
Wei Wuxian smiled self-depricatively. As expected, his sect-brother was too perceptive.
“What is your excuse this time? A child lost in the forest? A cultivator in vital need of help? Random botherdom?”
It had been a fox, whining as it got attacked by a corpse.
Wei Wuxian knew this ’excuse’ wouldn’t pass any better than the other ones, so he stayed silent.
Jiang Cheng pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you to be careful! The sects allowed you to go free on account of you being an omega as long as you wore the collar, but you’re on thin ice right now.”
If Wei Wuxian had had his way, he’d hidden being an omega for a bit longer and died that day. Everyone else had already gone…
Now he was just a weight for the people who survived.
Unaware of his dark thoughts, Jiang Cheng stepped forward and produced a key to open the cage. Wei Wuxian looked at it a bit enviously.
The villagers had been terrified of Wei Wuxian when they found him collapsed, seizing in the throes of the punishment for having called upon demonic energy. By then, the fox was long gone and all that remained was the twisted corpse, standing in a gloom testament of Wei Wuxian’s crime. Unsure of what to do, they had dragged him in the local entertainer bear cage and called cultivators for help.
Any explanations Wei Wuxian had tried had been met with frustratingly obtuse refusal, and yet— Jiang Cheng didn’t even have to prove his identity for them to put Wei Wuxian’s life in his hands.
His sect-brother smell turned softer as he pulled Wei Wuxian out of the cage. If it wasn’t for the undercurrent of bitterness Wei Wuxian could still sense, it would have almost been like the old days when one of them got into trouble and the other got him out.
Jiang Cheng held Suibian to him. “You left it back at Lotus Pier. Again.”
“Did I?” Wei Wuxian took the familiar yet powerless sword, letting his fingers run across the sheet.
“Don’t forget it again. How are you going to show you're back on the righteous road if you keep losing your sword?!”
Suibian was useless. But he couldn’t tell Jiang Cheng that.
Even after everything, his sect-brother believed Wei Wuxian had turned to demonic cultivation by choice. Keeping this secret was one of Wei Wuxian’s last bitter victories, and he fully intended to take the truth of what happened to his golden core with him into the grave.
“I won’t,” he lied, knowing that Suibian would inevitably be left behind again.
He followed Jiang Cheng back to the sect, knowing that he would be under renewed orders not to leave it. Knowing that he would anyway, be it only to see how much he could push before they finally put him down, omega or not.
His limbs ached from electrical shocks. He ignored it, careful to let as little as his pain as possible show in his movements. No matter how much the shock collar surprised him or hurt him, Wei Wuxian wouldn’t scream. This, too, was a secret he would take with him into the grave.