And now that I've discussed the Hallows with people more, I think they may indeed be sentient, but they are alien, by which I don't just mean extraterrestrial, but perhaps entirely unrelateable by humanoids, and it's possible they didn't empillar Ye Zun for his crimes, but they analyzed his power and made the unilateral decision that it needed to be contained. And then they put Shen Wei to sleep as the only other existent power that might be able to neutralize Ye Zun's power should their containment fail, and perhaps, in their conception, containment is mercy, but... And by the time Shen Wei woke up, all of the atrocities of both rebel leaders had been attributed to Ye Zun, probably, and he might even have come to be superstitiously blamed for all the misfortunes that befell Dixing (and the scattering of the Hallows themselves), and by the time anybody bothered to talk to him about any of it, he was inclined to both claim credit for all of it and threaten more. This is my working theory of the moment, at any rate, for why Shen Wei would wake up and come to believe Ye Zun deserved empillarment, and I think poor Ye Zun at that point is just willing to be the person his brother most hates, just so Shen Wei feels something for him that's equal to his obsession with his brother, and I'm hurting my own heart now so I'll stop.

(Could I commission a personal Ye Zun icon? I'll pay in a drabble, if so. Ye Zun or Weilan, one-word prompt.)