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The thing is, Jin Ling knows how to kill.
He’s spent his life living in the shadow of a dead hero. He’s had the double-edged glory of Jin gold weighing him down since he was old enough to understand why the other children never played with him.
At thirteen, he is expected to wield his father’s sword. Suihua is a long sword meant for a taller man with a golden core much stronger than his own.
All his life, Jin Ling has worked twice as hard to measure up to the echo of his father.
Jiujiu has trained him hard. Harder than any of his peers in Jinlintai. Harder than those who were never quite his cohorts at Lotus Pier.
Jin Ling knows how to wield a sword. He knows where to strike to take down yao and gui and all manner of creatures.
So, too, does he know how to take down men.
After Rusong’s murder, Jiujiu had taught him where to aim— how to be as quick and as lethal as the survivors of the Sunshot Campaign.
The thing is, Jin Ling has never wanted to kill— until now.
He stands at the foot of the stairs, watching Haunguang-Jun and Wei Wuxian take down waves of Jin cultivators like they are nothing more than gnats swarming a lantern.
No one spares him a glance. Not a thought for their spoilt little lord when the scourge of the cultivation world is on their steps.
As they escape down the stairs, Jin Ling blocks their way.
Wei Wuxian glances at him and sighs in relief, already moving to circumvent him.
Suihua shakes in Jin Ling’s fist, but he forces himself into the man’s path again. “You’re Wei Ying?” He isn’t sure if he wants it to be true or not.
(That’s a lie. He hopes with every fiber of his being that it isn’t true.)
He’s sure he looks a mess. He feels like one. “Are you really Wei Ying— Wei Wuxian?” The man who murdered his father. The man who killed his mother. The man who just killed his aunt. The monster parents warn their children of.
The man’s face twitches, and for a second, he looks so much like Jiujiu that Jin Ling knows it’s true. He’s seen that same quiet pain. The clenched teeth. Who is this man, if not the one his mother and uncle once called brother?
Wei Wuxian moves to go around him again, and Jin Ling’s hatred and pain boil over. He strikes, quick and sure, and merciless as the man before him.
At the last fraction of a second, he changes course.
Suihua sinks into Wei Wuxian’s stomach. He sees the once-white tip of his blade burst through the man’s back.
He jerks the sword free, and Wei Wuxian looks blankly at the blade for a long second. Jin Ling’s heart beats like a rabbit trying to break through his ribs.
Someone screams
Jin Ling can’t tell who it is. It almost sounds like Jiujiu, but that can’t be right.
He stares at the bloody sword in his shaking grasp and then he looks up at the weeping wound he wrought.
Wei Wuxian sways, but he doesn’t go down. The Jin cultivators swarm once more, and Wei Wuxian meets them, even though anyone else would be in a heap.
Jin Ling barely notices when Haunguang-Jun knocks Suihua from his hands. Barely hears the din as Hanguang-Jun rejoins the fray, fighting his way back to Wei Wuxian’s side.
He stares at the mess on his hands and looks up at his uncles, where they stand on the steps of Jinlintai.
Xiao-Shushu watches the proceedings with a small smile that sends a shiver down Jin Ling’s spine.
But Jiujiu— Jiujiu is watching him. There is pain on his face. It’s the same damn expression that Wei Wuxian wore a minute ago. Jin Ling wants to laugh.
The first tear falls, and Jin Ling sinks to his knees beside the bloodied sword.
The thing is, Jin Ling knows how to kill.
If anyone has a right to kill the reborn Yiling Laozu, it is him. A boy orphaned by that man. A boy who should have been his family. A boy who has been living a life so corrupted by his influence that he has lived with rage in his heart where his mother would have taught love.
And yet… all that rage wasn’t enough to avenge the people Wei Wuxian has slain.
All that rage, and Jin Ling can’t help remembering the hands that pulled him out of the walls of a tomb, the first person who’s ever apologized to him and meant it, the mentor who guided and guarded them in Yi City, the man who showed him, earlier today, how to defend himself from bullies like Jin Chan.
What a joke.
Hanguang-Jun and Wei Wuxian are long gone by the time Jiujiu helps Jin Ling to his feet and puts Suihua back in his hand.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t yell.
Jin Ling almost wishes he would.
The thing is, Jiujiu taught him how to kill.
The other thing is, Jin Ling didn’t. He couldn’t— and they both know it.