vestigenet | 7/24 (shortly after fran's post), video, @wei.wuxian

( the man in the video is (as hinted by his robes) one of the cultivators that some have had the fortune or misfortune of encountering, but he at least seems to understand how to center himself in the video and that's better than some.

those who have met wei wuxian before will see a new sort of tension to him, a stressed pinch to his brow, a determined set to his jaw even as he offers a slight grin in greeting. )

Hello, fellow prisoners. I'd say I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the chipper girl did that well enough, good work there. But yes - whatever it is that's happening to you, it really does call for blood. Speaking from, ah, firsthand experience. ( ...terrible joke, absolutely terrible.

now his grin fades to something more grim and businesslike. ) So if your arm is turning to crystal or, I don't know, wasting away or something - speak up, alright? Most of us have blood, and some of us could stand to have a bit less of it. And if you don't say something now, someone's going to have to waste more blood on you later and it's a whole big ordeal.

( says the hypocrite currently failing to disclose to anyone his own rotting hand and arm. )

Or you could die, I suppose, if that sounds more fun to anyone. ( entirely facetious, of course.

a beat and then, ) Anyway, I think I have blood to spare in a pinch. Maybe if you do too, speak up here or something so the rotting-and-crystallizing lot know where to find you.

( that seems the be the area of most need - at least the people with headaches (or whatever that drawing is meant to indicate) can bleed themselves for relief. )

( for the record, this post is also carefully filtered away from jiang cheng because let's not have that fiasco again. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Something is wrong with Wen Ning's eyes. The light is too bright, even a candle flares up in his vision. He hasn't left the house except at night since this started, and has even taken to covering the one window of his room with the quilt off his bed.

But when he sees Wei Wuxian's post on his phone, he decides he can't keep holing himself up like this. He wants to help people, however he can.

So he leaves his room, putting on some helpful glasses he picked up at the gas station, and goes to find wherever Wei Wuxian is. ]

I saw your video. And that girl's one. About the blood. I want to help.

( wei ying glances over to ning to see who's arriving, then double-takes back at him to eye the dark panels covering each of the man's own eyes. an attempt at fashion? not likely.

but more important than the question it begs is the declaration wen ning has to offer. he wants to help. wei wuxian offers an appreciative grin, because of course wen ning wants to help. ) Sure, of course, of course - but, ah.... ( how does he phrase it? ) Is blood... something you still have to offer? All things considered.

( but the question still feels overly personal, however practical, so he lets out a little laugh and - ) Wen Ning is so mighty these days, I've not seen him earn so much as a scratch.

[ That does raise a very good point, actually. Wen Ning raises a hand and stares at his palm for a moment. He actually hasn't gotten injured badly enough to bleed ever since he was resurrected as a fierce corpse. ]

Um... [ The hand closes into a fist and drops to his side as he nods as confidently as he can at Wei Wuxian. ] Yes. At least, I think so?

( the fact that ning is just as uncertain about his ability to bleed makes wei ying feel at least a little bit better about it, all things considered. but he does (with relative confidence) think he can bleed, and he wants to help...

wei wuxian eyes him for a long moment in scrutiny, consideration (a bit more difficult with the dark panels covering his eyes, but he'll manage). then, finally, his lips press together and he gives a decisive little nod. ) Come with me, ( he's saying, sweeping past ning (though not without a hand on the man's shoulder as he passes, just short of a tug to pull him along) to head for the bathroom.

once they're both inside, he locks the door behind them and, with a grim set to his jaw, he rolls up his sleeve to expose an arm very much in decay, skin red and inflamed saved for the dead and almost greying skin around two blackened spots of rot along his wrist and upper forearm.

then his eyes lift again to the man before him, the look in his eye reading very much like 'i'm trusting you with this thing literally nobody else knows or is going to know'. ) You're sure you want to help?

[ He doesn't ask, doesn't question. Just follows Wei Wuxian to the bathroom blindly like he always does. He would follow Wei Wuxian to the ends of the earth, if he asked him to. If he was back home and he found out that Wei Wuxian was trapped here, in this containment zone, he would find a way in, any way he could.

But what he sees when Wei Wuxian rolls up his sleeve shocks him to his core. His mouth falls agape, he looks from the rotting arm, to Wei Wuxian's face, back to the arm, seeking some kind of confirmation that this is just an unfortunate joke. ]

Wei-gongzi, you—!

[ It's not a joke. And Wei Wuxian needs his help. He nods, more to bolster his own confidence than anything else, then starts rummaging through the bathroom cabinets, looking for something sharp. He finds a safety razor and quickly breaks it apart, peeling out one of the small blades. Taking a deep breath, he slices a cut across his palm until there's a fresh rivulet of blood pooling in his hand. ]

And then I... [ What does he do now? ] ... Just put the blood on your injury?

( no, it's not a joke. not in the slightest. even now, as he sees it in the corner of his eye (because he looks at ning, of course, not the arm), he mentally scolds himself for not swallowing his pride and solving this quite a bit sooner. it hadn't been pressing then, not compared to what was happening to so many others, and now? now he gets to eat a bit of crow about what he said in his network address, about saying something now so that others don't have to waste more blood later.

now it's later, and poor wen ning has to waste quite a bit of blood to right any of it. 'just put the blood on your injury?' kind of him, to call this rotting mess an 'injury'. either way, wei wuxian pulls in a bracing sort of breath and nods, finally glancing down at it to gesture up and down the length of it with his free hand. ) It has to be, ah - all over, I think. Might be best to start from the top? ( that way they can at least stop the spreading, even if they don't manage to fix it altogether. he's not going to up and presume that wen ning is going to spare him that much blood. )

[ He nods, pressing into his cut palm with the thumb of his other hand, prompting more blood to pool there. He hesitates slightly, before placing his hand directly atop the rotted flesh and spreading the blood as evenly as he can across every inch.

It's not that he's afraid of rotting flesh. He's well acquainted with the signs and scents of death by now, even if he himself has always stayed relatively well preserved. Death has been a regular part of his life for a long time now; his own death, the death of his loved ones, the deaths of those the Jin sect ordered him to kill. He and death are old friends. But that said, anything he can do to keep death from claiming Wei Wuxian again, he will. ]

( at first, wei wuxian watches the steady smearing of blood along the red inflammation and the deadened bits. then his eyes lift (a bit surreptitiously) to wen ning's face, to the stubborn determination that has taken hold of the man's features. even having done what he did to bring life back to ning's body, it still shakes him a bit every time the man so readily throws himself into fighting for wei wuxian's well-being. sure, he had asked for this favor, but wen ning didn't hesitate for a moment in fulfilling it.

wei ying's lips press together a bit, eyes dropping back down to his sorry excuse for an arm. it's bloodied nearly down to his hand by now and he's half-tempted to call the man off, to make certain his friend doesn't lose too much blood, but what good will that do? the grim fact of the matter is that unless they wipe it away altogether, it will only come back. and so he holds his tongue until he's bloodied down to his fingertips, then his free hand lifts to ning's shoulder in an appreciative grip. )

Bandage that up, alright? I'll be fine from here. ( he should thank him. however obvious it may be in his grateful tone, he should say the words. and perhaps he will in a bit, with a little distance between them and all of this, but the words are inexplicably more difficult right at this moment. )

7/24 (shortly after fran's post), video, @wei.wuxian

ACTION!!!

oh my god he has shades

GMAIL, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME

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cw: blood, self-injury

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