The Yin Hufu had not graced the battlefield yet. It wasn't ready. Even with Wei Wuxian already knowing exactly what he needed to do to complete it. Every spare moment Wei Wuxian had was devoted to refining the Yin Hufu. It had been so much more powerful than he expected, before.  He's hoping he can find a way to make it weaker, or easier to destroy.  If nothing else maybe he could find a way to make it actually bond with him.  Something so that Wei Wuxian wouldn't have to worry about anyone picking it up and being able to use it to unleash hell.

Really Wei Wuxian wishes he could simply not use it.  With the right circumstances the Yin Hufu could overwhelm the mind of the user.  Driving them into a temporary insanity to allow the Yin Hufu to do what it wanted to do.  The Yin Hufu is a tool that wants to be used, and it doesn't care who uses it.  Wei Wuxian regretted creating it, but at the same time he can't escape it.  He will have to make it again.  He will have to use it again.  As is Wei Wuxian's abilities are not enough.   Wei Wuxian was pushing his limits with every battle. Trying to mobilize just a few more spirits, animate one more corpse.

Every resentful spirit and fierce corpse he commanded was one more barrier to protect their allies. At least, Wei Wuxian liked to think so. His fierce corpses were used as a shield. Always the front line against the strongest forces. Wei Wuxian didn't disagree with this, but the fights were growing more intense.

With each battle the expectations of what Wei Wuxian's corpses could do seemed to increase. Hours of playing Chenqing left his fingers stiff from the force he used to hold the flute in place as he had to move and dodge enemies on a battlefield. The effort of playing Chenqing for hours without break was already enough to make his arms feel heavy. That was without the burden of using resentful energy.

The resentful energy was painful. Sharp pain, like tiny blades under Wei Wuxian's skin, radiated through his body. It would start as a small twitch of pain, a dull ache behind his eyes. The ache would grow more pronounced before it began to spread through his shoulders, then down through his arms. The ache would begin to change to the sharp painful sensation of razor blades under his skin.

It would start in Wei Wuxian's extremities; his hands, arms, legs. After a while Wei Wuxian would begin to feel a burning sensation in his hands. It was like he stuck his hands in a snowbank and left them there. A cold burning sensation that began to travel through his body. It would become harder to focus past the pain. His muscles would stiffen making it harder to move.

Using small amounts of resentful energy was no problem for Wei Wuxian. He had long since perfected his methods enough to make using small or even moderate amounts easy. Honestly Wei Wuxian could probably have dealt with large amounts without much difficulty if he only needed to do it for a short period of time. The problem was that the amount of resentful energy he was using went far beyond the typical classification for a large amount. Wei Wuxian was at his absolute limit for the amount of resentful energy he could control and he was sustaining it for hours upon hours.

Wei Wuxian felt a sharpening of pain in his body, crossing the line from 'this hurts' to 'this hurts and is going to do damage'. Considering Wei Wuxian's threshold for how bad the pain can be in the first description, he knows he really has pushed it too far if he is hitting the second one. Wei Wuxian immediately pulled back.

Somewhere on the battlefield a few corpses were dropping to inactivity as a result. This was a good thing, since Wei Wuxian was making sure the resentful energy dissipated to inactivity as opposed to just releasing the corpses to go wild. The fighting continues for hours. The bright light of the afternoon sun becomes the last dredges of sunset before Wei Wuxian can finally put down his flute.

"Wei Wuxian!" An angry voice shouts. Wei Wuxian doesn't recognize the voice, but the tone is familiar. A cultivator Wei Wuxian doesn't recognize is stomping angrily towards him. The cultivator's expression is angry, matching the enraged accusatory tone of voice. Another cultivator is running to try and catch them, managing to grab a hold of their robes so the cultivator is still more than two arms lengths away.

"Wei Wuxian, just what do you think you are doing?! I saw your corpses falling without even being touched by the enemy! Aren't you supposed to be our ally?!" The cultivator shouted angrily.

Wei Wuxian can feel the air change around him as people stop moving, their attention focusing on the drama unfolding before them. Wei Wuxian is used to this too. He is used to being the centre of attention. He was the centre of attention when he was taking the negative attention off of the younger disciples, his friends, his siblings. He was the centre of attention when he was trying to buffer Jiang Wanyin's rough social interactions.

Wei Wuxian had spent so much of his life taking on attention to make other people comfortable that to do anything else became actively uncomfortable. Now, there is nothing Wei Wuxian would like more than for everyone to just ignore him. Except he can't exactly command an army of corpses without people knowing someone was commanding them.

"My brother was left exposed when you pulled your corpses back! The corpses were intact! Isn't that all you need to in order to use them?! The corpses near us dropped, because you chose to drop them! The QishanWen cultivators suddenly had an obstructed path to us! Those monsters eviscerated him!" The cultivator is shouting as his friend starts pulling him back. The second cultivator is apologizing breathlessly as he tries to talk the first cultivator down.

This too is very familiar. Wei Wuxian didn't say anything. Anything he says will somehow be taken as evidence against him. No matter what, his words will be twisted in other's mouths and thrown back at him. It will be evidence of him being arrogant, or cocky, or heartless...

'Out of control.'

'Weak.'

'Pathetic.'

'Insane.'

Wei Wuxian takes a slow measured breath as his mind echoes with the memories of words thrown at him before. Voices of righteous cultivators, former friends, and family all overlapping. Wei Wuxian breathes steadily through the flashes of emotion and painful words. Again he says nothing. Not to the cultivator fearfully apologizing on his friend's behalf. Not to the cultivator who has just blamed him for the death of a man Wei Wuxian has probably never even met. The same cultivator who seems to be accusing Wei Wuxian of deliberately withdrawing support to aid their enemies.

The accusations make no sense. The accusations have never needed to make sense. Why would Wei Wuxian want this nameless cultivator's brother to die? If Wei Wuxian wanted to aid the QishanWen sect, why would he be assisting the allied sects at all? The answers don't matter. Just like Wei Wuxian's responses to such accusations don't matter. Wei Wuxian has found silence seems to give him the best result.

During the war Wei Wuxian is needed. He is the first ever to master demonic cultivation. As much as the righteous cultivators love to publicly denounce it, none of them can deny how infinitely useful it is in combat. They especially cannot deny the tremendous contribution it brings to the war effort. Fierce corpses may not be cultivators but they are inhumanly strong, difficult to kill, and for everyone that is destroyed Wei Wuxian can quickly raise another. One thing that every battlefield has in abundant supply is dead bodies.

So Wei Wuxian pretends not to notice the way the other cultivators try to keep their distance from him. He pretends he doesn't hear the fearful whispers around camp. He avoids the offended gazes of those who denounce his methods while benefiting from them on the battlefield. He ignores the arrogant gentry who are offended more by Wei Wuxian's lineage than his power. The ones who insult and goad him, not actually because of demonic cultivation. They are insulted because he is the son of a servant, and how dare a servant be more powerful than them.

In his last life Wei Wuxian responded to the insults said about him and by extension his sect. He protested the idiocy and injustice of being blamed for things that he had not done. He doesn't bother anymore. It seems to end much more quickly when he doesn't answer them. Wei Wuxian is starting to understand the appeal of not talking.

Months of war have slipped past one another. Wei Wuxian isn't sure how long the war has been going on. He thinks he remembers someone mentioning the war being two years old sometime recently, but it doesn't much matter. Wei Wuxian recalls having a hard time keeping track of time between battles in his last life as well.

A warm arm loops around Wei Wuxian's waist and lifts him up. Wei Wuxian feels the slight dip as his feet land on Bichen. Wei Wuxian wordlessly settled against Lan Wangji's chest as Bichen begins to rise in the air. Wei Wuxian is bone achingly exhausted. His entire body hurts, and his limbs feel like lead weights. He is standing purely on will power, and it is quickly waning.

Lan Wangji does not bother to set down until they are in front of their tent. Wei Wuxian is grateful he doesn't see anyone nearby. The hardest people to deal with among the allies are the ones who mean well. The people who are afraid of his demonic cultivation, because they are worried about what the resentful energy might be doing to him.

Their concerns fill Wei Wuxian with a sick feeling in his stomach. How can he say nothing? They are worried about him, and that should mean that they care. Yet, what can Wei Wuxian say? Nothing seems to assuage their fears. They don't believe him when he says he can control it. They don't believe him when he says it isn't being hurt by it. Wei Wuxian tries not to feel hurt and offended by the blatant lack of trust. They care so much but they don't trust his word, they don't trust his skills.

Not being trusted by those who care about you hurts much more than being feared and accused by supposed allies. Wei Wuxian still remembers how much it hurt to hear Lan Wangji constantly warn him of the dangers of using resentful energy. Now Lan Wangji is the one insulating Wei Wuxian from such well meaning and exhausting words.

Once they are a few steps into the tent Wei Wuxian turns around and walks immediately into the warm embrace of Lan Wangji's arms. They're both exhausted. Both covered in blood and filth. Wei Wuxian doesn't care. His legs feel like they could collapse at any moment. He still doesn't care. He let's himself have a few precious moments in Lan Wangji's embrace. He let's himself remember that Lan Wangji has been beside him in every battle and next to him during every nightmare filled sleep.

Lan Wangji has not asked him to stop. He has been more worried about the hurtful words Wei Wuxian has had to endure from their allies. Wei Wuxian reminds himself of everything Lan Wangji has said and done for him every day of this war. Wei Wuxian let's himself bask in the knowledge that Lan Wangji trusts him, and this helps chase the cold ache from Wei Wuxian's heart.