Chapter Text
It’s a sad song, but here’s the thing: to know how it ends and still begin to sing it again - as if it might turn out this time - is why tales live on.
Wei Wuxian had only just opened his eyes when someone kicked him. A voice thundered in his ears: “Playing dead?”
See, Wei Wuxian was a hungry young boy.
He almost coughed up blood from the kick. His head hit the ground, and with his face turned up, he thought hazily, You’ve got nerve, daring to kick me, the patriarch?
He pushed himself up, blinking to clear his bleary vision as he looked around. Instead of the deep reds and silks of his room in Paradise Manor, it looked like he was in a shack. Pieces of paper were scattered on the ground, dried blood flaking off the wood floors. He frowned as he recognized the talismans surrounding his body. His very much alive body.
But in spite of his hunger, Wei Wuxian had a gift to give.
“Think for a moment whose land you're living on, whose rice you're eating, and whose money you're spending! So what if I took a few things of yours? They should’ve been mine in the first place!” There was the clamoring noise of chests and cabinets alike being ransacked. It was a good moment before Wei Wuxian’s eyes could focus. A dim ceiling came into view, as did an unfortunate-looking face with a greedy glare. That face was spraying spittle all over him. “And you dare go tattle on me! You think I’m actually afraid of you tattling? Do you actually think anyone in this house would take your side?”
Two large men who looked like servants came over. “Young master, everything’s smashed!”
“So fast?” the quacking youth questioned.
“There wasn’t much stuff in this broken shack anyway,” the servant replied.
Whatever this young man was, he turned to Wei Wuxian, “Go and tell on me, I dare you. Who are you playing dead for? As if anyone would actually give a crap about all this junk and waste paper. I’ve smashed everything; let’s see what else you’ve got to go tattle on me with! Think you’re all that just because you went to a cultivation sect for a few years? Well, didn't you get kicked out like a stray dog anyway?!”
Presently half dead, Wei Wuxian thought to himself, it’s not pretend. I’ve actually been dead for many years.
Who was this? Where was this?
Where was this?
When had he ever done something like forcibly possess the body of another?
After having kicked the man, ransacked the house, and spent all his temper, the quacking youth strutted out the door along with his two servants, slamming the door behind him.
He ordered in a loud voice, “Keep proper watch, don't let him come out to embarrass people!”
The servants outside the door all heeded. Once the man had gone, silence settled both inside and out of the house. Wei Wuxian wanted to sit up, but his limbs would not obey him, so he lay back down and flipped over. His head continued to spin as he looked at his strange surroundings and the mess on the floor.
Next to him was a copper mirror that had been tossed onto the ground, and Wei Wuxian snatched it up. A dreadfully pale face appeared in the mirror. Two large blots of red were smeared unevenly on each cheek; if he were to stick out a long and vividly red tongue, then he’d be the very picture of a hanged ghost.
Fortunately, it wasn’t that this body had been born strange, but rather, the penchant of the previous owner. A full-grown man with a face heavily caked in makeup, and sloppily applied at that.
This shocked some energy back into Wei Wuxian, who was finally able to sit up. Only then did he notice the circle of a spell array beneath him. The array was scarlet and crooked, seemingly hand-drawn using blood as the medium. It was still damp, emitting a metallic stench. There were warped and crazed spells drawn within the array that had been somewhat smudged by his body, but the remaining shapes and characters were gruesome in their evil intent. Wei Wuxian had been called by titles such as the Supreme Evil Lord, the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, and whatnot for years, so naturally, he was very familiar with obviously devious arrays such as these.
The sigils and spells were familiar, and after working with Hua Cheng for so long, he understood the resentful intent behind the array immediately. He hadn’t stolen a body, nor was this one of the normal strange situations that Hua Cheng and Xie Lian had dragged him into over the past 16 years. The young man whose body he now inhabited had offered himself up to Wei Wuxian’s soul.
He was offended for a short moment. This spell was meant to apply to malicious souls who would have no issue carrying out the wishes of the sacrifice, the most evil people in life who refused to rest in death. Wei Wuxian was no such evil in either phase of his life. He had even resisted summonings for the past 16 years! He refused to be exorcized or controlled before Lan Zhan could join him in the spirit realm. There was no reason this boy should think Wei Wuxian of all people was the best choice to summon.
Wei Wuxian lifted his sleeve to find four deep cuts on his arm, just as he feared. He picked up some of the scattered pieces of paper around the room to try and find some sort of explanation for why this young man who gave up his body had been desperate enough to do so in the first place.
The writings on the scattered pieces of parchment were nearly manic. Some of the sentences were incoherent and disordered, but the anxiety and nervousness were abundantly clear. Wei Wuxian patiently examined each sheet, and the more he looked, the more he felt something was amiss.
Through some guesswork, he figured out a few things. First, the owner of this body was named Mo Xuanyu, and this place was called the Mo Estate.
Mo Xuanyu’s grandfather on his mother’s side was from a rich family in this area. The family wasn’t large, and the man was not fated for a son. After years of trying, he still only had two daughters. The name of the second daughter wasn't mentioned, but either way, the eldest daughter was born of the lawful wife. Thus, they were looking for a husband to marry into their family name. Although the second daughter was exceptional in appearance, she was born of a servant, which was why the Mo family had originally planned to marry her out without giving much thought to the groom. Who would've thought she was fated for a fortuitous encounter?
When she was sixteen, the head of a prominent clan was passing by and fell in love with her at first sight. The two made the Mo Manor the site of their rendezvous, and a year later, the second daughter gave birth to a son. This was Mo Xuanyu.
The inhabitants of the Mo Estate would normally have held such an event in contempt, but people at the time worshiped cultivators. In the eyes of the mundane folk, cultivation clans that pursued immortality were loved by the heavens, mysterious and noble. Furthermore, that prominent clan leader would financially support this new outer family branch of his every so often. So naturally, these circumstances were special. Not only did the Mo family consider this an honor, but others were extremely envious too.
However, the good days did not last. That wandering clan leader was only hungry for the novelty of fresh meat, and he was over it after two years, coming to visit less and less frequently. After Mo Xuanyu turned four, the man never appeared again.
In those passing years, the Mo Estate’s opinion changed again. The contempt and mockery returned, now with added disdain and pity. Second Lady Mo refused to accept this, believing firmly that the prominent clan leader would not turn a blind eye to his own son. And sure enough, when Mo Xuanyu turned fourteen, that clan leader sent over a grand party to officially take him back.
This time, it seemed, the situation was unsalvageable. Unable to take this blow, Second Lady Mo was choked to death by her own unappeasable outrage.
At this time, Mo Xuanyu’s grandfather had already passed, and the one managing the household was First Lady Mo. This Madam Mo had never been able to stand her little sister, and she scorned that sister’s bastard son. She had a single son herself by the name of Mo Ziyuan—the one who had just ransacked Mo Xuanyu’s house. When Mo Xuanyu first left with such impressive fanfare, First Lady Mo had felt they now possessed something of a family tie to that prominent cultivation sect and had hoped the cultivator envoys would bring Mo Ziyuan along with them too. Of course, she had been rejected, or rather, ignored.
Such a situation created unimaginable resentment and disgust within Lady Mo and Mo Ziyuan, subsequently resulting in Mo Xuanyu’s subpart treatment. Even Madame Yu, who had surely hated Wei Wuxian, hadn’t treated him so terribly.
It was through this information that Wei Wuxian was able to draw the conclusion that the slashes on his arm represented Mo Xuanyu’s main tormentors, but how exactly did he want it done? To what extent? Take back what was taken? Beat up the family?
Or wipe them out entirely?
It was most likely the last, although Wei Wuxian wasn’t particularly enthused about that.
Wei Wuxian said helplessly, “But you've got the wrong person...”
Still, it wasn’t as if Wei Wuxian had any choice in the matter. He could either achieve Mo Xuanyu’s wish, or his soul would be destroyed for good - no returning to Ghost City, and no entering the reincarnation cycle.
Wei Wuxian set aside his desperation to go find Lan Zhan and the Wen Remnants. It hadn’t fully set in yet that he was alive, and that he therefore had the opportunity to reunite with his love and his family, but his instincts were urging him toward his final goal anyway. He could process his change in circumstances and the implications of it later. Before he could do any of that he had to carry out Mo Xuanyu’s wishes. He wouldn’t risk dying of his wounds when he had been given such a rare and unbelievable second chance to make things right.
When he arrived at the main Mo Estate, however, he was surprised to find that he wouldn’t have to go far to find the Lans, as there was already a group in the main hall. The white robes and headbands couldn’t be mistaken as anyone else’s.
As soon as Wei Wuxian stepped foot inside the hall, all eyes turned to him. He gave a wide taunting smile at the Mo family seated at the back of the room, basking in the surprise on their faces.
Two servants stepped forward with their arms outstretched, ready to seize Wei Wuxian. Determined to not be taken off guard again, Wei Wuxian dropped down without warning and latched firmly onto the ground, immovable no matter how he was pulled or dragged. Not even the extra servants who were called in to help could do anything. If not for the outsiders who were present, they would’ve started to kick him already.
Madam Mo’s face was growing darker and darker, and the husband was drenched in sweat as well.
He yelled, “You damn lunatic! If you don't go back right now- be careful or I’ll put you in your place!”
Although everyone from the Mo Estate knew there was a young master in the Mo family who had gone mad, Mo Xuanyu had withdrawn into that gloomy house of his for many years, afraid to see anyone. Now that they saw how both his appearance and his actions resembled those of a raging monster, they started to whisper among themselves, excited to watch this spectacle unfold.
Wei Wuxian spoke up, “I can go back if you want.” He pointed at Mo Ziyuan. “But you have to make him return everything he stole from me first.”
Mo Ziyuan’s face turned an alarming shade of purple, “You’re lying! Since when have I ever stolen anything of yours? Why would I need to steal any of your stuff?”
“Right, right, right,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “You didn’t steal, you snatched!”
Madame Mo then spoke sharply, “You fully intend to wreak havoc here today, isn’t that right?!”
Wei Wuxian looked confused. “He stole my stuff, snatched it from me, even. Is asking for it all back considered ‘wreaking havoc’?”
“You!” Madame Mo stood, and Wei Wuxian quickly darted behind one of the Lan Disciples, hiding behind the boy’s smaller figure and playing the part of an insane man cowering from his abuser. When Wei Wuxian went to peek his head out and say something to Madame Mo again, he paused, instead staring at the back of the Lan’s head.
While the front of his head proudly sported the traditional Lan ribbon, with the special cloud motifs showing that he was a member of the inner family, the back of the ribbon was quite different. Red strands interspersed with white, forming the shape of thin, almost invisible pairs of rabbits seemingly hopping down to the edge of the ribbon.
No Lan, inner family or not, would be able to get away with such a blatant breaking of the traditional dress code unless there was an incredibly good reason for it. And even then, Wei Wuxian had only ever known one Lan who had broken the rules for rabbits specifically, and although the Lan in front of him was clearly much too young to be Lan Wangji, there was another who would be right around his age-
“A-Yuan?”
It was not as if the Lan retinue could grow any more silent than they already were, but there was a sudden and heavy shift of energy as all those wearing white honed in on Wei Wuxian. Luckily, however, he was still playing the part of a madman, so he was able to smile and announce without a care, “From now on, if anyone tries to steal my stuff, I’m gonna chop off an arm for every time they do. Just try me!”
This served as a worthy distraction for the room. As Mo Ziyuan, who was previously being held back by his father, squirmed like a snake trying to avoid a catcher’s grasp, desperately trying to beat the life out of Wei Wuxian despite their audience.
Wei Wuxian stepped out from behind the Lan - A-Yuan, was it his A-Yuan? He was so small when Wei Wuxian had to leave, but he had those same eyes, the same nose, if only Lans actually smiled and then he could be certain - and ran from the room, singing loudly as he went.
When he was out of sight and hearing distance he came to a dead stop, staring straight at the ground. What was it he told himself earlier - he could process his change in circumstances and the implications of it later? It was certainly later.
He had been dead for 16 years, and although he spent every single day of those 16 years missing his family and longing to be able to see them without risking becoming a resentful spirit, he was happy. He had found a support system in the citizens of Ghost City and the less stuck-up gods of the Heavenly Realm. He was content with waiting, and now, after mastering patience, he got exactly what he had been praying so desperately for - and it hadn’t even been his choice.
Wei Wuxian pulled back his sleeve, frowning at the cuts that were still on his wrist. Just like he thought, embarrassing the Mo family wasn’t enough. If Wei Wuxian wanted to keep this body he would have to eliminate the Mo family in a way that wouldn’t put all the suspicion on him, and given his position as a madman that would be difficult. Rumors of Mo Xuanyu snapping would spread easily, and Wei Wuxian knew from his first life that rumors were more dangerous than swords.
While Wei Wuxian wandered around the Mo Estate, he spotted the Lan disciples gathering and setting up on the rooftops. His eye immediately went to the child who he suspected to be A-Yuan, finding from his movements and direction to his clan members alone that he was as elegant and noble as Lan Zhan.
The Lan contingent was setting up an array of flags around the property, and when Wei Wuxian squinted he could make out familiar talismans - his talismans. Quick as a whip, Wei Wuxian got his hands on one of the flags and began looking it over. Sure enough, it was the Spirit Attraction Flag he himself had invented. Of course, Cultivators would use his inventions if it suited them, whether or not their creator was deemed a heretic.
The brush lines were amateur but steady enough and all of them were in order. The power radius wouldn’t go far, but for a mission like this that didn’t matter much.
“Hey, give that back!” One of the Lans, not A-Yuan, but the boy who had been next to him nearly the entire time, caught on to Wei Wuxian’s thieving and reached out for the flag.
“I want to see it!” Wei Wuxian insisted, his eyes roving over the flag again just to make sure that everything was right. If this was A-Yuan and he wasn’t just deluding himself into seeing his son in a random Lan disciple, then he would be remiss to not do everything in his power to ensure this Night Hunt went well.
A-Yuan stepped up then, his calm demeanor in stark contrast to that of his companion. It vaguely reminded Wei Wuxian of himself and Lan Zhan when they were Juniors.
“This flag-”
Before he could finish, Wei Wuxian tossed the spirit-attraction flag onto the ground and humphed. “What's so good about this crappy flag? I can draw better!”
He then took off right after. He would have loved to stay longer, to talk to the juniors and see if his suspicion was correct, but that would go against the persona he had already created for himself. Mo Xuanyu was meant to be strange and flighty, not eager to interrogate some random Lan Disciples.
He did, however, linger long enough to hear what the other Lan disciple called the boy he suspected to be his son. Lan Sizhui. Longing.
So Wei Wuxian wandered idly about for a while, pondering this and that about his revival. Would Hua Cheng and Xie Lian be panicking at this point? He wondered what it was actually like when his soul was called, the last thing he could remember was wandering through Paradise Manor and then he was being accosted by Mo Ziyuan.
It wasn’t until after dark that he returned to Mo Xuanyu’s little courtyard. The door latch was snapped, without anyone to clean up the mess. He ignored it and picked a somewhat clean spot in the room before sitting down and beginning to meditate. Mo Xuanyu’s golden core was pitiful, but it was there. Wei Wuxian had long since forgotten the gentle warmth of a Golden Core, and while this one was so small it was more like the heat felt from a candle, it was there all the same. Wei Wuxian would dedicate the rest of his life to cultivating and taking care of his new core, now knowing what it was like to live without one.
To Wei Wuxian’s dismay, it hadn’t reached the morning hours when a noisy commotion outside pulled him out of his meditative state. A clamor of footsteps mixed with wailing and screaming was rapidly approaching, and Wei Wuxian heard these cries repeated:
“Break in and drag him out!”
“Report him to the authorities!”
“Who cares about the authorities, just beat him to death!”
He opened his eyes just as a number of servants charged in. The entire courtyard was lit up as bright as day, and someone was shouting
“Drag that murdering lunatic to the main hall and make him pay with his life!”
Wei Wuxian immediately worried that something had gone wrong with the flag formation. The smallest carelessness in the usage of his inventions could cause disaster, which was why he had earlier purposely gone to verify whether the spirit attraction flag was properly drawn. Thus, when those large hands came to drag him out the door, Wei Wuxian lay there limply, allowing himself to be dragged out. He was dragged to the east hall, where it was as lively as could be; surprisingly, there were no fewer townspeople gathered than there had been during the day. Lady Mo sat slumped in her seat as if she had only just awoken from having fainted. There were traces of tears on the sides of her cheeks, the rims of her eyes still wet. However, the moment Wei Wuxian was dragged in, her tears instantly transformed into a baleful glare.
On the ground, there lay something that resembled the form of a human. The body was covered by a white sheet, and only its head was exposed. Lan Sizhui and those youths were bent down over it, inspecting the body solemnly and whispering to each other. Their words filtered into Wei Wuxian’s ears:
“It hasn't been one incense time since he was discovered?”
“Right after subduing the walking corpses, we were rushing to the east courtyard, and the dead body was lying there in the corridor.”
This corpse looked like Mo Ziyuan, but at the same time not. While the facial features were clearly that of his cousin, the cheeks were deeply sunken, the eyeballs bulging, and the skin wrinkled. It was as if he had aged twenty years compared to the previous Mo Ziyuan, who had been in the prime of his youth. It also almost seemed as if he had been sucked dry of his blood and flesh. He looked like a mere sack of bones dressed in an extremely thin veil of skin. If it could have been said that the Mo Ziyuan from before was simply ugly, then his corpse now was old and ugly.
Wei Wuxian was just taking a detailed look when Madam Mo suddenly came charging over. Something shining flashed in her hand. She was holding a dagger! Moving as fast as his eyes saw, Lan Sizhui knocked it out of her hand, but before he could say anything, Madam Mo was already screaming at him.
“My son died a tragic death! I need to avenge him!! What’re you stopping me for?”
Wei Wuxian once again ducked behind Lan Sizhui and shot back, “What does your son’s tragic death have to do with me?”
“Madam Mo, the state of your son’s corpse is clearly the work of evil. Its blood, flesh, and spirit have been completely sucked out. He could not be the culprit.”
Madam Mo’s chest heaved. “What do you know?! This lunatic’s father is a cultivator, so he must’ve learned plenty of evil magic!”
“Madam, there is no evidence, so it is still best-”
Madam Mo pointed at the corpse on the ground. “Take a look at yourselves!! A-Yuan’s dead body has already told me who his murderer is!”
Without waiting for the others to make a move, Wei Wuxian raced to pull back the sheet from head to toe. Mo Ziyuan’s corpse had something missing. His left arm, from the shoulder down, was completely missing.
Madam Mo added, “You see that? You all heard him today, right? What this lunatic said? That if A-Yuan touched his things again, he would chop off A-Yuan’s arm! My poor A-Yuan never touched anything of this lunatic’s. Not only was he slandered, he was killed by this maniac.”
Wei Wuxian didn't want to bother with her. After a moment of thought, he reached into Mo Ziyuan’s robes and searched, finally digging something out. When he unfolded that something, it was a spirit-attraction flag.
In that instant, it dawned on him. He muttered under his breath, “Mo Ziyuan brought this on himself!”
Mo Ziyuan’s hands had never been clean. He’d grown addicted to stealing the talismans and spiritual tools belonging to his crazy older cousin. When he saw the magical objects, he couldn’t help but feel the itch to take them for himself, no matter the cost. Thus, while the owners of the flags were subduing walking corpses in the west courtyard, he secretly plucked one away.
Although Mo Ziyuan had only stolen the one flag, he didn't have any protective tools on him. Go after the weakest, as they say. Naturally, the evil spirits were lured to him. If it had only been walking corpses, then it wouldn't have been a big deal. At most, he’d have been bitten a couple times. It wouldn't have resulted in his death. There would still have been a chance to save him. Yet it just so happened that this spirit-attraction flag had unintentionally summoned something more terrifying than walking corpses. And it was precisely this unknown evil spirit that had killed Mo Ziyuan and robbed him of an arm!
Wei Wuxian raised his wrist. Sure enough, a cut on his left arm had healed. It seemed the sacrificial ritual had acknowledged Mo Ziyuan’s death as his doing. After all, the spirit-attraction flag was Wei Wuxian’s invention, so he’d hit the mark out of pure luck.
“If you hadn’t made a scene and framed him in front of so many people yesterday, would he have gone out in the middle of the night?” Madame Mo likely knew of all her son's flaws but clearly refused to accept them when there was a much easier person to blame right in front of her, “It’s all your fault, you bastard!”
Wei Wuxian was already prepared and sidestepped to dodge the attack. Madam Mo then screamed at Lan Sizhui “And you! You bunch of useless fools! What cultivators are you, what evil can you exorcize? You can't even protect a child! A-Yuan is so young!”
Wei Wuxian frowned at Madame Yu’s scolding of the young group of cultivators, whose faces fell at the harsh words. Being from such a prestigious sect they had likely never been treated in such a way before. Their rules wouldn’t allow them to defend themselves either, which meant it was up to Wei Wuxian.
“Who do you think you’re yelling at? Do you really take them to be your servants? They came all this way to exorcize evil for free, and now they owe you? How old is your son again? At least seventeen, right? A ‘child’ still? How old do you have to be to understand human words? Did they not instruct us again and again yesterday not to go near the west courtyard, not to touch anything in the formation? Your son snuck out in the middle of the night to dally about - is that my fault? Or is it his fault?”
Madame Mo turned to her husband and shoved him, “Call everyone in! Call everyone in here!”
However, her husband seemed to be in some sort of daze and reached out to shove Madame Mo back. Knocked down to the ground so abruptly, Madam Mo was stunned. Madam Mo grabbed her heart, and said with a shaking voice, “You- you- you get lost too!!”
Her husband seemed not to have heard. Seeing how the family was finally quieting down, Wei Wuxian went to inspect the corpse further. However, he had barely glanced at it before another high-pitched scream pierced through the door.
The crowd inside the hall poured out and was greeted with the sight of two bodies spasming on the ground in the east courtyard. One was a slumped servant boy, alive. The other was collapsed on the ground, its body wrinkled and withered as if its blood and flesh had been completely sucked dry. Its left arm was already gone, and there was no blood flowing from the wound. The state of this corpse was exactly the same as Mo Ziyuan’s.
Wei Wuxian glanced down at his arm, another cut gone. He turned to look back at the group. Madame Mo’s husband was notably absent. He looked back at the corpse. The robes were the same as the master of the house.
“Did you see what it was?”
The servant only shook his head at Lan Sizhui’s question. Wei Wuxian then recognized him as one of the servants who had raided Mo Xuanyu’s shack that morning. Lan Sizhui, burning with impatience, instructed his peers to bring the boy inside before he turned to his friend. “Did you fire the signal?”
“I did,” Lan Jingyi replied. “But if there are no seniors nearby who can come to offer assistance, our people will probably take at least an hour before they can make it here. What do we do? We don’t even know what it is right now.”
It was, of course, impossible for them to leave. If a clan’s disciples only cared about escape when running into evil spirits, then not only would they embarrass the clan, but they themselves would be too ashamed to go out again. The terrified folks of the Mo household could not leave with them either. The evil spirit was most likely among them, so it would have been useless even if they fled.
“Stay on guard until help arrives!”
Since the distress signal was already fired, other cultivators would soon come to their aid. In order to avoid adding to the present trouble, by all accounts, Wei Wuxian should have retreated, but he couldn’t stop the swell of hope in his heart. If Lan Sizhui was A-Yuan as he suspected then Lan Zhan was likely close by keeping an eye on him! He would risk the suspicion of another cultivator if it wasn’t actually Lan Zhan who would soon arrive.
Besides, with the sacrificial ritual’s curse on him, he could not leave the Mo Estate yet. Plus if the summoned creature could take two lives within such a short span of time, then it was abnormally ferocious. If Wei Wuxian dropped everything and left, then by the time reinforcements arrived, the entire Mo Estate would have its streets filled with corpses missing their left arms. And surely, some of those corpses would include the familial disciples of the Lan Clan of Gusu.
Those youths were fledglings, each of them looking nervous. Despite that, they still scrupulously took their places to protect the Mo Manor and stuck talismans inside and outside of the hall. Suddenly, the servant who had witnessed the spirit sprung up from his former dazed state on the ground.
Without warning, the servant's hand wrapped around his own neck.
Seeing this, Lan Sizhui targeted several of A-Tong’s acupoints with a triple tap of his hand apiece. Wei Wuxian knew that while the Lan clan appeared gentle on the surface, their arm strength was not gentle in the least. Using that method, anyone could be rendered thoroughly unable to move. However, the servant appeared not to have felt a thing. His left hand gripped harder and harder, his face scrunching more and more with pain. Lan Jingyi went over to pull at his left hand, but it was like trying to break off a chunk of iron: immovable. Moments later, crack. A-Tong's head drooped down, and only then did the hand let go. But his neck was already broken.
He had actually strangled himself before the eyes of all!
This wasn’t a malicious ghost.
He had seen the talismans those youths had chosen, and they were the spirit-repelling type. They had plastered the entire east hall with them, airtight. If this really were a malicious spirit, then those talismans would have immediately burned with green flames when it entered the east hall. Things would not be as quiet as they were now.
Just as he was thinking this, the firelight flashed. A blast of sinister wind whipped by, and every lantern and every candle in the entire courtyard, including the east hall, was extinguished.
Screams erupted the instant the lights went out. The men and women pushed and shoved, falling and fleeing.
It didn’t take long before the east hall fell quiet, with only the sound of light breaths and faint sniffling. Most had probably left. In the darkness, a firelight suddenly flared. It was Lan Sizhui, who had lit an illumination talisman.
The flames of the illumination talisman could not be extinguished by the sinister wind that carried evil, and he used this talisman to relight the candles anew while the rest of the youths went around to console the others. Under the light, Wei Wuxian took a nonchalant glance at his wrists. Another cut had healed.
It was then that he suddenly realized the number of cuts were wrong.
There had been four cuts in total. One cut healed after Mo Ziyuan’s death, another cut healed after the death of Mo Ziyuan's father, and then a third after the death of the servant. Tallying that up, there should have been three healed cuts, leaving only the cut with the deepest wound and the deepest hatred.
But now there was nothing on his wrists. Not a single cut was left.
Wei Wuxian believed that Madam Mo was most definitely among those whom Mo Xuanyu wished to seek revenge upon. The longest and the deepest gash was likely for her, yet it had surprisingly vanished.
Was it Mo Xuanyu who had suddenly let it go and abandoned his hatred? That was impossible. His soul had been sacrificed as the price for summoning Wei Wuxian. In order for the cut to heal, Madam Mo had to die. Unless...
He slowly moved his gaze from his wrist to Madam Mo, who had recently roused and was surrounded by the crowd. Her face was white as a sheet.
... Unless she was already dead.
Wei Wuxian was sure something had already possessed Madam Mo. If that thing was not a spirit, then what could it be?
Lan Sizhui moved the illumination talisman over A-Tong’s corpse. Sure enough, his left arm had also vanished.
In that flash of a second, everything was clear. The creature causing mischief and the vanishing left arms formed a connection that clicked in Wei Wuxian’s mind. He suddenly snorted and burst out laughing.
Wei Wuxian pointed at Father Mo’s and A-Tong’s corpses on the ground. “That’s not them.”
Lan Sizhui stopped Lan Jingyi, who was about to blow up. He asked, “You said ‘that’s not them.’ What do you mean?”
Wei Wuxian said smugly, “Because of the hand! They're not left-handed, they always beat me with their right hands. I know that much at least.”
Lan Jingyi lost his patience and spat, “What are you so smug for? Look at that pleased face!”
Lan Sizhui sent a bewildered look at Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian only continued to laugh cheekily, knowing that the hint had been too conspicuous, but there was no other way.
“Hold her down!” Lan Sizhui shouted, having looked over at Madame Mo and spotting the sudden stark differences between her right and left harm.
It was clear mere moments later that even the legendary Lan arm strength wasn’t a match for the possession Madame Mo had been placed under. She threw the two Juniors off and enacted a vicious battle that led to the Lan juniors needing to use the spells sewn into their outer robes - something normally treated as a last resort on Night Hunts.
While keeping one eye on the ensuing battle to contain the spirit that had taken out the Mo family in a single night, Wei Wuxian wandered over to where Mo Ziyuan’s spent body lay. He leaned down and whispered, “Wake up.”
In his first life, despite being the originator of Demonic Cultivation, he’d never held the power to wake corpses up with only his words. He’d need either Chengqing or the Yin Tiger Seal. But after spending sixteen years working with high-ranking ghosts that had refined control over resentment, he had picked up a few tricks.
Both Mo Ziyuan and Madame Mo’s husband stumbled to their feet, empty eyes turned to Wei Wuxian and awaiting further instruction.
“See the left hand on your mom? Go shred it.”
The corpses needed no further instruction and jumped into the fray, viciously attacking Madame Mo’s corpse with a single-minded focus on the arm that seemed to be the source of the possession. While two freshly risen fierce corpses should have been more than enough to handle the situation, Madame Mo still managed to subdue them.
Wei Wuxian bought the Lan boys some time, but it likely wasn’t enough. If reinforcements didn’t arrive for them soon, he had no guarantee that they would make it out alive. Something was seriously wrong with that demon hand, and Wei Wuxian needed to find out what.
He looked around, mind calculating what the best course of action would be. He could reanimate the corpses again, but that would draw suspicion to him before anything else. But as Madame Mo sprinted toward A-Yuan and his friend, Wei Wuxian found resentment responding to his panic. He had to save A-Yuan, he couldn’t let anything bad happen to him again-
A musical thrum stopped Madame Mo in her tracks. The juniors looked up and cried out in relief, “Huanguan-Jun!”
Wei Wuxian looked to the rooftop where the musical originated, and his heart leaped to his throat. Golden eyes, strong features, a guqin in hand, and a guan on his head depicting a blooming lotus. This was Lan Zhan.
Without thinking Wei Wuxian sprinted forward, snatching the sword out of A-Yuan’s friend’s hand before he had a chance to react.
“Hey!” The boy cried, stepping forward only to be stopped by A-Yuan.
“Jingyi, be gentle.”
There was a small bamboo grove in the courtyard, and Wei Wuxian quickly cut a stalk, slicing small holes into the cylinder until he was satisfied. He swiftly tossed Jingyi his sword back, no longer in need of such a weapon when he now had one of his own.
He looked back to Lan Zhan on the roof, who was playing Subdue in an attempt to stop Madame Mo’s corpse. While she was temporarily stuck in place, it was clear to everyone that such a state wouldn’t last long. So, Wei Wuxian lifted the haphazardly made flute to his lips and began to play.
All eyes immediately snapped to him, but Wei Wuian couldn’t pay them any mind. Instead, he focused on Madame Mo. Her right arm snapped up to grab her left, her natural corpse now forced to fight against its possessor. With Wei Wuxian’s resentful influence over the corpse itself, and Lan Wangji’s traditional playing in the background, it didn’t take long for the demonic arm to simply “pop” off Madame Mo’s body and fall to the ground. Wei Wuxian quickly turned his attention away from Madame Mo and to the now detached arm, the intensity of his playing picking up rapidly as he controlled the arm alone while Lan Zhan jumped down from his rooftop perch and quickly threw a qiankun pouch the arm's way, the extensive spells on the bag successfully containing it for the time being.
Wei Wuxian let out a relieved breath, glad that the situation was over with only the deaths of the Mo family resulting. The other members of the Lan contingent were slowly waking up and shaking off their injuries from being thrown around by the arm earlier in the fight, and the servants and common folk fled much earlier.
Grip tight on his new flute, Wei Wuxian slowly turned back to face the two juniors and Lan Zhan, all of whom were wide-eyed. Before any calls could be made to capture him and take him in for questioning and imprisonment, Wei Wuxian began to play another song on the dizi . Although it hurt something terrible every time he played it in Ghost City, he persisted, never allowing himself to forget the song Lan Zhan had written for him as an engagement gift.
With his quickly made flute, something was slightly off to the music due to the lack of quality in his instrument, but the notes and tune were impossible to miss at their core. Wei Wuxian knew it was recognizable because Lan Zhan’s entire body stiffened up and A-Yuan looked vaguely ill.
“A-Die, how does he know Baba’s song?” A-Yuan dropped all sense of Lan formality, likely due to distress that Wei Wuxian was eager to soothe. Just as soon as Lan Zhan spoke and decided Wei Wuxian’s fate.
“It’s you,” two simple words that meant everything to Wei Wuxian.
Wei Wuxian smiled, tears springing to his eyes as he nodded frantically, thanking the gods that Lan Zhan had seen him in spite of his new body, “It’s me.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan took a step closer, otherworldly grace fleeing his body as he all but stumbled into Wei Wuxian, pulling him into a hug that knocked the new breath out of his new lungs.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian breathed out a sigh of relief, leaning into his zhiji’s embrace. It had been so many years since he had felt those firm arms around him, comforting him and making him feel safe.
“Baba?” A-Yuan stepped forward, brows furrowed in slight confusion as he looked over Wei Wuxian’s new body. Clearly, he had little to no idea about what was going on, but Lan Zhan had declared him to be Wei Wuxian, and there was a faint hint of familiarity in A-Yuan’s eyes. He may not recognize Wei Wuxian in this new body, but something about his demeanor was hitting its mark.
“Hi, my little radish,” Wei Wuxian grinned, stepping out of Lan Zhan’s embrace to hug his son, “Look how big you’ve gotten! I’m going to have to dig a much bigger hole to plant you now! I’m sure your A-Die has been slacking on making sure you go big and strong.”
“But- how?” A-Yuan looked from Wei Wuxian to Lan Zhan, as if this was a surprise they had planned together.
“I turned around,” Lan Zhan said, so quietly that Wei Wuxian nearly missed it. Wei Wuxian flung around, poking Lan Zhan in the chest, “I lost you forever.”
“It was an impossible task, Lan Zhan. Hua Cheng knew that he himself would have turned around because he loves Xie Lian so much. Looking is love, Lan Zhan. You’ve always seen me the way no one else could, how could I ever be upset that you saw me then too?”
“Wait, that's the Yiling Patriarch?” Lan Jingyi cried an accusatory finger pointed in Wei Wuxian’s direction, “He was supposed to be dead! Isn’t his death how you managed to convince the Clan Elders to take in the Wens, Huanguan-Jun?”
“You took care of them, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian’s tears finally began to spill over at the thought. Lan Zhan had always taken care of him, even when Wei Wuxian pushed him away. Of course, he would take care of those Wei Wuxian loved too.
“Anything for Wei Ying and our son,” Lan Zhan said seriously.
“Aiya! You’re too nice to this lowly one,” Wei Wuxian joked, his heart feeling full for the first time in sixteen years, “Our little one is all grown up. Clearly, I missed a lot.”
“How did you come back in Mo Xuanyu’s body?” A-Yuan asked with a tilt of his head.
Wei Wuxian shrugged. The truth was he wasn’t entirely sure of the circumstances behind the Soul Summoning Ritual, “It’s a long story, I think. What’s happened these past sixteen years?”
“Also long,” Lan Zhan said simply.
“Well, it’s a good thing we have time!” Wei Wuxian beamed, and he could have sworn that he saw a glowing butterfly flit past him and into the night sky, “We have time.”
It’s an old tale from way back when, and now it’s going to be sung again.