"You didn't notice that he was a little similar to you?" 

" - Oh yeah, we were definitely getting along well... I don't really think of myself as similar to dad a lot, though..."

"You are of course your own person. But when you were very small and I knew you less well of yourself I was often struck by how much you take after him."

She laughs. "Do you think something's up, then, with him being so similar?"

"No." Just that it hurts.

She leans against him, briefly.

He gives her shoulder a brief squeeze. 

They continue looking for any sign of a soul-eating creature, to no avail. 

It is when they have circled around to head to the shrine to regroup with Jingyi that the sounds of panicked combat reach their ears--

Followed by the sound of a remarkably horrible flute playing what is nonetheless identifiable as a song no one else alive should know. 

Lan Wangji freezes in place for a moment before bolting towards the source of the sound.

She runs as well, ready to draw her sword - she knows that song, that's her dads' song Wangxian...

He comes into view of the scene as Wen Ning is demolishing the soul-eating goddess. 

That by itself is startling enough; the Jin sect was supposed to have incinerated him before the siege, even before Nightless City. But--

The figure controlling him was Mo Xuanyu, who had reminded him so much of Wei Ying, and was now playing a hastily-carved bamboo flute, and the notes that he was playing on it were--

This was not Mo Xuanyu. 

"Do you think something's up, then, with him being so similar?" "No." 

He had been wrong. He had been so, so wrong. 

Wei Ying. 

Wei Ying backs up into the trees and almost physically collides with Lan Wangji, Wangji's hand coming up to grip Wei Ying's wrist, to feel the vital pulse, alive, alive, alive--

The two stare at each other for a long moment before Wei Ying determinedly begins playing again, banishing Wen Ning back to--somewhere--not here where there are dozens of cultivators who would love to make their name by killing him. 

She steps up next to her father, keeping her attention fixed on the cultivators, though she's fighting not to glance at her maybe-other-dad.

And that was when Jiang Cheng had the bad grace to show up. 

He got into a shouting argument with his nephew, which was fine on its own, but Jin Ling mentioned the part where Wen Ning had showed up and "Mo Xuanyu" had been controlling him. 

Jiang Cheng's eyes narrowed as he turned to the demonic cultivator. 

"So. You're back, then." 

And his purple lightning whip lashes out. 

Only to be deflected by a burst of power from Wangji's guqin strings. The two spiritual tools' power surge against each other, and the night sky lights up purple. 

Oh this is so not on any level good. 

He makes a break for it. 

Bad move. As soon as he's outside Hanguang-jun's protective range, Jiang Cheng redirects Zidian, to strike the body that must be holding his brother's soul and banish it. 

But while the strike is quite painful, and he goes crashing into the donkey he was originally running towards, nothing else happens. 

"Ow! You really can bully anyone you want when you're from a big sect, can't you!" 

Sharply: "Clearly such a strike did nothing," she says, sharply, not leaving her father's protection but stepping closer to 'Mo Xuanyu' all the same, "So there can't be a possession here. Why would anyone think one strange person, who can't even play the flute, could control such a legendary figure as the Ghost General?"

"You weren't here! He was definitely controlling him!" Jin Ling yells. "Wen Ning moved when he was playing and stopped when he stopped, there's no question!"

"And since Zidian found nothing... What does that even prove?"

"It doesn't have to prove anything! Wen Ning killed my father!" 

"Who are you, then?" Jiang Cheng growls at "Mo Xuanyu."

"Erm..." says a random bystander, and then explains that he was Jin Guangshan's bastard who had been a disciple of the Jin sect until he had been kicked out for being bad at respectable cultivation and being super gay and it was super plausible that he had taken up demonic cultivation. 

"Whatever, then. Wei Wuxian or not, I'm taking him back to Lotus Pier." 

"Um...I'm flattered, I really am, but just because I'm a cutsleeve doesn't mean I'll go to bed with just any man, and frankly, you aren't my type." 

"That--no--what is your type, then???" he demands, tripped up by his own competitive instincts. 

"Well, Hanguang-jun, for example, he's completely gorgeous." 

"Mark your words." 

"Huh?"