Coff! Coff! Hack!

"A-Yang..."

"I'm fine, dear, trust me."

"I've informed the main sect, we'll get a remedy from them as soon as we can, you'll hold on till then, yes?"

Luo Qingyang looked up at her husband. "LanlingJin sect?"

"Yes, couldn't help it."

"It's fine, Jin Rulan might help. Oof!" She clutched her chest and slumped to the wooden bed.

"Mummy?" Little Mianmian, her daughter, watched her anxiously, horrified at the sight of the blood sprayed across the floor by her mother's coughs. Qingyang was pale and trembling, the agony of her affliction racking her whole frame. Little Mianmian, now a fourteen-year-old elegant young lass, reached out her hand and placed it on her mother's drenched forehead. "Mummy's fever keeps going higher, Daddy..."

Qingyang's husband nodded. "If the sect's people don't come in–"

"Young Mistress Luo?" A man knocked on the door. The husband walked over and opened the door, gladly letting the Jin disciple in. "I got a remedy from Doctor Lan, please try it."

"Doctor Lan?" Luo Qingyang croaked.

"Yes, Sect Leader Jin instructed me to get the medicine from Doctor Lan. As per Second Doctor Lan's instructions." 

Luo Qingyang frowned in thought. Second Doctor Lan? Who's that? Dear Lord, I haven't been out much, recently...

"A-Yang, here," her husband held out the jar of medicine. He swirled the potion for a few seconds before trickling it down her throat.

"Relieved to see Young Mistress Luo hasn't reached the paralysis stage, yet," the Jin disciple nodded with relief. "That potion, Doctor Lan suggested taking a spoonful every eight hours. Here's a sandglass to help. It's Head Disciple Xiyi's, she's arranged it for four hours' training periods, every two turns, feed the medicine," the disciple handed a sandglass with its top and bottom gilded with the white peony emblem.

"Thank you, thank you very much," the husband bowed low in gratitude and kept the sandglass on the table.

"I shall take my leave then, but if things get any worse, don't fail to contact the nearest watchtower."

"Thank you," little Mianmian bowed to him.

The disciple, only a few years older than Jin Ling himself, smiled, tousled the girl's hair and walked away.

Both husband and daughter turned to Qingyang to see how she was doing. "Mummy, any better after the potion?"

"Sweetie, Mummy only had it just now, give her some time, yeah?" Her father patted her shoulder.

Luo Qingyang forced a smile to reassure her daughter before turning around and coughing out more blood.

"Mummy... What's with your eyes?" 

**********

"Mianmian! Mianmian! Open the door!"

The husband looked up from the bed, his wife jerking awake from her troublesome slumber. Little Mianmian ran to the door and checked. "Who is it?"

"Mianmian– Oh, if it isn't little Mianmian! Hello, Little Mianmian!"

"Hey, you're the guy who saved Mummy once, right?"

"She told you?"

"Mianmian, who is it?" Her mother called from inside, voice croaking.

The father walked to the door and bowed. "Xingguang Xian!"

"Hello, pal," Wei Wuxian smiled and bowed back before nodding to the bed. The husband let him in. "Mianmian!" Wei Wuxian ran to the bedside and looked up and down the woman lying on it, trembling and pale.

"Young Master Wei?" Luo Qingyang smiled. "What brings you here?" She asked, trying to sit up.

Wei Ying held her by the shoulders and forced her back down on the bed. "Quit with the acting and stay still, I was there when the Jin lad told Little Rulan the news. When did this start?"

"Yesterday. Didn't think it'll get serious this quick. Hanguang-Jun," Qingyang nodded.

Lan Wangji bowed and stood beside his husband.

"Ah? You all came?"

Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen, still in the crimson robes but all jewellery tossed aside, walked over to the other side of the bed with Nie Huaisang and Chen Xuanji. Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui stood with their fathers. "Auntie Mianmian!" Jin Ling frowned.

"Aish, Jin Rulan, no need to panic, I'm fine."

"You really are Daddy's friend," Sizhui shook his head. "Fineness is forever at a whole new level," he sighed, taking little Mianmian's hand and checking her own pulse and temperature to make sure she was safe.

Wen Ning, having checked the Qingyang's spouse, stood with Lan Yuan. "Both husband and daughter are safe. Just Young Mistress Luo." 

Luo Qingyang looked up and down Wen Ning's new amber and blue robes with the medical symbol and smiled. In a hoarse voice, she asked, "So you're the famous Second Doctor Lan? Congrats. Mm!" She groaned, grabbing her chest and shooting up to sit on the bed.

"Mummy's going to cough blood again," little Mianmian announced.

Wei Wuxian bent down, tossed her arm around his shoulder and helped her up onto her feet, walking her out to the garden. While she nodded in gratitude and turned away to cough out more blood, Wei Wuxian bit his lip, thinking. He turned to Lan Zhan.

"A-Zhan?" He showed his palm and pointed it towards Luo Qingyang.

Lan Zhan understood. "Should I do it?"

"No, my demonic energy might do better." Wei Wuxian turned to Luo Qingyang. While Qingyang was still taking a deep breath out of fatigue, he raised his hand, let it exude a sudden burst of red energy and slammed it against Qingyang's back.

Blech! Luo Qingyang threw up a pint of black blood.

Wei Wuxian dusted his hands and smiled proudly. "There. Knew there was bad blood clogged up. Feel better?"

Luo Qingyang sniffed and cleared her throat and turned around. "Young Master Wei... thank you..."

Wei Wuxian frowned when he saw her wincing eyes. "Does it hurt too much?"

"No... just... this disease is making me lose a lot of energy..."

"Lift your head," Wei Wuxian ordered.

Luo Qingyang looked up at him.

Wei Wuxian gasped. Her eyes were bloodshot and red. Not red as in red because of the veins being strained... but her irises had actually turned blood-red.

"Red eyes?" Jiang Cheng asked from behind him.

Luo Qingyang shrugged, and her husband supported her to stay upright.

"Mummy had red eyes since morning."

Lan Xichen gave the girl a thumbs-up for giving so much information. "Anything more, little one?"

"Hm? Red eyes, coughing blood... she was as hot as burning coal this morning... and yes, Mummy's energy has dropped."

Chen Xuanji smiled when she realised that despite her father being a mediocre, little Mianmian had a core — which was how she was able to sense her mother's energy.

"The illness," Jin Ling nodded slowly. "It's eating up one's core energy..."

"Now that," Nie Huaisang flapped his fan. "Sounds like something Wei-xiong can solve?"

Wei Wuxian smiled at him. "Nie-xiong knows me well. Mianmian, let's go back inside."

**********

Once she was seated on the bed, Wei Wuxian interrogated Luo Qingyang. "Mianmian, how low is your energy?"

"Barely there."

"And why didn't you try using someone else passing in spiritual energy to you to heal you? That's a basic thing every cultivator tries first."

"Mianmian's energy is still developing, I can't use her energy, that'll weaken her, what if she gets the illness, too? No other cultivator around that I know..." She stroked her daughter's hair, fingers quivering.

Wei Wuxian nodded. "Fine, then I'll give you energy."

"A-Ying," Lan Zhan called. "Your energy is demonic. She's a spiritual cultivator. Shall I do it?"

Wei Wuxian shook his head. "Nie-xiong guessed right. The red eyes..." Wei Wuxian looked around his friends and suddenly flashed his own red eyes. "Familiar? Similar?"

"Oh? So her disease is something like dark energy possessing and decaying her? A demonic plague?" Chen Xuanji asked.

Wei Ying nodded. "Plague sounds just right, since it's in Lanling and Gusu, means it's spreading fast. I've only read one record of this from the past... in your Gusu library..."

Lan Sizhui, Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen all nodded at the same time, chorusing "The Red Death."

"Exactly. The Red Death. Centuries ago. Wonder how it came into power again... But anyways, I'm guessing my energy can subdue Mianmian's condition. Once that's done, there might be demonic energy in excess. A-Zhan, I want you to then send in your own energy to dismiss my own one before mine hurts her. Okay?"

"Mn, understood."

With her husband's permissive nod, Wei Wuxian sat on the side of Luo Qingyang's bed and helped her sit up. While her daughter held her arms to keep her seated upright, Wei Wuxian sent in waves and beams of his bright red energy, deep into her meridians, straight into her core. 

Jiang Cheng waited for it to end, impatiently... If the cure didn't work as hoped... If the Red Death really was incurable as said... Should anything go wrong...

Either Luo Qingyang would go berserk with the inflow of demonic energy...

...or...

...Wei Wuxian would get the plague himself. And then there would be absolutely no way to heal either of them.

Lan Wangji watched, anxious, apprehensive, on alert. He wouldn't let himself think of all the possible negative outcomes. All he knew was he trusted his husband.

And hopefully, that was all that mattered.