prologue

The air was tense, so tight that one slice from even the dullest blade could cut it without effort. Wei Wuxian, tears in his eyes, looked her over carefully. "Who are you, really?" He forced out through clenched teeth. Xiaoying found it hard to maintain eye contact with him, but she held her ground well as she in return stared him down.
"You want to know who I really am?" She responded, letting out a dry laugh, trying to hold back her own sadness from showing on the surface. All her life she had to hide, to mask, to keep herself secret. It was, in fact, her mother's dying wish.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Wei Ying, Wei Wuxian, the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, the Yiling Patriarch, was alone for the first few years of his life. His mother and father killed during a night hunt, he was left to the streets, fighting dogs for food, accepted into a clan he called home only to be slain by a sworn brother, to lose a sworn sister, to lose everyone he called family and in the end be blamed for it.

Wei Xiaoying, hiding under the false name Wen Xiaoyi, was a cultivator hiding within the Wen Sect as their presiding Battalion Commander. She had a hunger to do what was right for the good of those around her unable to defend themselves, trying to live honorably through her parents she never got to meet - she was all alone in life.

She was alone, until one day she was accepted.
He was blamed, until one day he was understood.
A brother. A sister. Reunited.
This is that story.