Prologue

“Great news! Wei WuXian has died!”

Less than a day has passed since the siege in LuanZang Hill, and the news
spreads through the cultivation world as if it sprouted wings, surpassing even
the speed of warfare.

For a while, from the most prominent clans to rogue cultivators, everyone is
discussing the siege that was lead by the Four Great Clans and followed by
hundreds of smaller ones.

“The YiLing Patriarch has died? Who could have killed him?”

“Who other than his shidi, Jiang Cheng, putting an end to his own relative for
the greater good. Jiang Cheng led the Four Clans of YunmengJiang,
LanlingJin, GusuLan, and QingheNie to destroy his “den”—LuanZang Hill.”

“I must say, good riddance!”

“Good riddance indeed! We finally eliminated this scourge.”

“If not for the YunmengJiang clan’s adopting and teaching him, he would have
been a hobo living on the streets, let alone causing mayhem as bold as the
ones these days. The head of the Jiang clan raised him as her own child, yet
he defected them and became the enemy of the cultivation world, bringing
shame upon the the Jiang clan, even leading to its near-extermination. He is
the prime example of biting the hand that feeds him!”
“Jiang Cheng allowed this fellow to live for too long. If I were him, at the time
of the defection, I wouldn’t have just stabbed him. In fact, I would have
thoroughly examined the disciples of the clan again, so that he doesn’t do
those crazy things he did later on. Who cares about the so called
‘considerations’ that he gave to his childhood friend.”

“That’s merely hearsay. Although Jiang Cheng was one of the main forces, he
did not give Wei WuXian the final blow. Because he cultivates the Demon
Path, Wei WuXian’s powers had backfired and he was ripped to pieces.”

“Hahahaha… That’s karma! The ghost soldiers that he created are like
unleashed dogs, biting everyone that they come across. It serves him right to
be chewed to death!”

“But, if not for Jiang Cheng making a plan that aimed at Wei WuXian’s
weaknesses, the siege might not have succeeded. Should I remind you folks
of the item that Wei WuXian possesses? Did you forget about the day that
three thousand skilled cultivators were completely annihilated?”

“I heard that it was more than three thousand, possibly five thousand.”

“He’s most certainly out of his mind.”

“It’s a good thing that he destroyed that evil weapon before he died.
Otherwise, if it was left in this world to harm humankind, his sins would have
been worse.”

“Oh well… You know, back then, Wei WuXian was one of the most promising
cultivators, coming from a highly distinguished clan and finding success at a
young age. How on Earth did he end up where he is now?”
“This proves that one can only cultivate by following the right path. Using
these dishonest practices would only seem beneficial at first glance. Look,
what happened in the end? Not even a whole corpse was left of him.”

“Not everything was because of his cultivation path. Wei WuXian’s personality
is quite immoral. One’s deeds will be paid, one way or another; what goes
around always comes around.”

After Wei WuXian’s death, the period is drawn on the topic. The discussions
of the people are mostly the same, with a few unconventional opinions being
brought down immediately.

However, the elephant in the room stayed in the back of everyone’s mind.

Nobody could summon Wei WuXian’s soul, which meant that his soul had
disappeared.

It might have been torn apart by the millions of ghosts that devoured him.

Or, it might have escaped.

If was the first, then all is well. Then again, nobody doubts the fact that the
YiLing Patriarch has the power to move mountains and empty seas. If was the
last, his soul would eventually return to revive in his body. When the day
comes, the cultivation world, or even all of mortal land, would be faced with
the most insane damnation and revenge, sinking into nothing but chaos and
despair.
The various clans set one hundred and twenty stone beasts on top of
LuanZang Hill and initiated frequent soul-summoning rituals, followed by
heightened vigilance and searches for strange occurrences from all over the
world.

In the first year, nothing happened.

In the second year, nothing happened.

In the third year, nothing happened.

In the thirteenth year, nothing happened either.

More and more people were starting to believe that, maybe, the YiLing
Patriarch actually perished.

Even if he was capable of turning the world upside down, it was finally his turn
to be toppled over.

Nobody would remain at the top for all of eternity—legends are only legends.
Reincarnation

Wei WuXian received a kick just as he opened his eyes.

A voice thundered beside his ear, “Stop playing dead!”

The kick threw him backwards, headfirst onto the ground. Fighting the urge to
vomit, a thought formed in his head—that’s quite a lot of courage you have to
kick me, the Patriarch.

It was his first time hearing a human voice in quite a few years, let alone such
a loud, fierce shriek. His head swirled and ears buzzed with the echoes of the
voice, “Whose land do you think you’re living on? Whose rice are you eating?
Whose money are you spending? What’s wrong with taking a few of your
belongings? Everything you own should be mine, anyways!”

Aside from this adolescent, duck-like voice, there were the clunks of

ransacking chests and smashing objects as well. His eyes gradually cleared
up.

A dimly-lit ceiling appeared in his sight, followed by a slant-browed person

with a sickly composition, drenching him with spittle, “How dare you tell Father
and Mother? Did you really think that anybody in this house is going to listen
to you? You actually thought I was scared of you!”

A few servant-like hunks shifted over, “Young Master, everything is smashed!”

The young master asked, “How did you finish it this quickly?”
A manservant replied, “There’s nothing much inside this shack anyways.”

The young master seemed to be quite pleased, poking Wei WuXian forcefully
on the nose, “You dared to tell on me, and look at you now, playing dead on
the ground! For whom? As if anyone actually wants these piles of junk! Now
that I’ve smashed everything, let’s see how you’re gonna tell on me in the
future! Are you proud of yourself just because you’ve studied cultivation for a
few years? Well, how does it feel when you’ve been kicked back home like a
stray dog?”

Wei WuXian thought wearily.

I’m not pretending to be dead at all, since I’ve actually been dead for a couple
of years.

Who is this?

Where am I?

When did I do something as immoral as stealing another’s body?

The young master let out enough anger by kicking the person and wrecking
the house, and strutted out with his two man-servants, slamming the door with
a “bang”. He shouted his orders, “Watch carefully. Don’t let him outside
anytime this month, or he’ll make a fool of himself again!”

As the group went away, silence fell upon the room. Wei WuXian thought
about getting up.
However, his limbs failed to uphold themselves, so he lay down again. He
turned on his side and stared dizzily at the strange environment and the
heaps of mess on the ground.

A bronze mirror rested on the side, probably thrown onto the ground. Wei
WuXian grabbed it and looked into the mirror, only to see a ghastly pale face,
with two asymmetrical piles of red on each side of his cheek. Add a blood-red
tongue onto the features, and he would look like a hanged ghost. He tossed
the mirror to the side and wiped his face, finding his hand covered with white
powder.

Fortunately, the body wasn’t born this way—it was only one of the owner’s
penchants. He was no-doubt a man, yet he was covered with makeup (not to
mention, badly applied makeup). Ugh, how unbearable!

Taken back by the shock, some energy came back to him, and he finally sat
up, noticing the circular array* beneath him.

The array was scarlet in color and crooked in shape, appearing to be drawn
by hand, using blood as the medium, still damp and emitting a strong scent.
The array was filled with warped scribbles of incantations, which were
somewhat smudged by his body, but came across as gruesome nonetheless.

After all, Wei WuXian was known as the Supreme Leader and Grandmaster of
Demonic Cultivation, so he was most certainly accustomed to vile-looking
arrays such as this one.

It turned out that, in fact, he did not seize the body of another—he was offered
one.

It was an ancient, forbidden technique. Compared to an array, it resembled a

curse more. The caster of the array injures themselves by creating incisions
on their body, and draws the array and writes the incantations using their own
blood, finishing by sitting in the center of the array. They can then summon an
extremely villainous ghoul and ask for it to complete their wish. The price to
pay was to offer their body to the evil spirit, with their own soul returning back
to Earth.

This was the forbidden technique opposite to stealing another’s body—

offering one’s body.

Because of the grave sacrifices, only few people were brave enough to put it
into effect. After all, there were hardly any wishes strong enough for a living
person to willingly sacrifice everything that they own. Over thousands of
years, only three or four examples have been proven to be true and recorded
by history. Without exception, the three or four people’s wishes were the same
—to take revenge.

Wei WuXian refused to accept this.

Why would he be put into the category of “extremely villainous ghouls?”

Although his reputation wasn’t great and he had died in a horrifying way, he
neither haunts the living nor seeks vengeance. He could swear that one can’t
find another wandering ghost as harmless as him.

The difficult part was that, as soon as the evil spirit has taken over the body of
the caster, the contract is sealed by default. The evil spirit must grant their
wish, or else the curse will cause a backlash. The spirit in possession of the
body will be completely annihilated, never to be born again!

Wei WuXian raised his hands to find that, unsurprisingly, both of his wrists
were crisscrossed with multiple cuts. He proceeded to take off his belt. Under
the black clothes, his chest and stomach areas were also covered with what
seemed to be lacerations from a sharp tool. Although the bleeding had
stopped, Wei WuXian knew that these weren’t normal wounds. If he didn’t
fulfill the wish of the body’s owner, the wounds would not be able to heal. It
would worsen as the time goes on, and if the time limit was passed, both his
soul and this body would be ripped apart.

Wei WuXian confirmed his situation several times, repeating “how can this
happen to me?” in his heart even more times, and could finally stand upright,
leaning against the wall.

Even though the house was large in size, it was empty and shabby, with
sheets and blankets looking like they hadn’t been changed in a long while.
There was a bamboo basket in the corner. It was supposed to be for storing
trash, but, having been kicked over earlier, the scraps all tumbled out onto the
ground. Wei WuXian scanned around the room and picked up a crumpled
piece of paper. He unfolded it and was surprised to see it crammed with
words. He hurriedly gathered all of the paper.

The words on the paper must have been written by the owner of this body to
vent when he felt stressed. Some sentences were incoherent and disordered;
anxiety leaped off of the page through the distorted handwriting. Wei WuXian
sat through every single piece of paper, and began to notice that something
was wrong.

He took a few guesses and roughly understood the state of things.

It turned out to be that the owner of this body was named Mo XuanYu. His
location was called Mo Village.

Mo XuanYu’s grandfather was from a rich family of the area. His family was
few in number, and, although he tried at it, he only had two daughters. Their
names were not mentioned, but the elder one was the daughter of his
principal wife, looking for a husband to marry into the family, while the
younger one was the daughter of a servant. The Mo family originally wanted
to hastily give her to someone, but an adventure awaited her. When she was
sixteen, the leader of a well-known cultivation family was passing by the area,
and fell in love with her at first sight.

Everyone admires cultivators. Cultivation families, in the eyes of common folk,

are like people favored by God, mysterious yet noble. In the beginning, the
people of Mo Village regarded the topic with contempt, but because the Sect
Leader*often helped out, the Mo family received plenty of advantages. And
so, the direction of the discussions changed, and the Mo family took pride in
the matter, while everyone else also envied the opportunity. The second-lady
of Mo bore one son for the leader—Mo XuanYu.

But, not for long, since the Sect Leader was only involved with her to
experiment with something new, he grew tired of it in a few years. After Mo
XuanYu turned four, his father never came back again.

Gradually, the opinions of the Mo Village’s people changed again. The original
contempt and scorn returned, alongside with disdainful pity.

The second-lady of Mo did not want to accept this; she firmly believed that the
Sect Leader would not turn a deaf ear to his own son. Sure enough, when Mo
XuanYu turned fourteen, the Sect Leader took him back.

The second-lady stuck her nose up in the air again, and told everyone that her
son would most certainly become an Immortal* as fast as he could, and bring
glory on his ancestors.

However, before Mo XuanYu achieve success in cultivation and inherit his

father’s position, he was driven back.

On top of that, he was driven back shamefully.

Mo XuanYu was homosexual, and had enough nerve to harass the other
disciples. The scandal was revealed to the public and, as he had few
achievements in terms of cultivation, there were no reasons for him to stay in
the clan.

Like adding frost to snow, aside from the event itself, when Mo XuanYu
returned, he often behaved in a crazy manner, almost as if his life was scared
out of him.

The story was almost too complex to be put into words. Wei WuXian’s
eyebrows twitched.

Not only a lunatic, a homosexual lunatic as well.

That explained why there were enough rouge and powder on his face to make
him look like a hanged ghost, and also why nobody was surprised at the large,
bloody array on the ground. Even if Mo XuanYu painted the whole room red
with blood, from the tiles on the ground to the walls to the ceiling, the others
wouldn’t be overly surprised. After all, everyone knew that his head had a
screw loose!

After he went back home dejectedly, he was bombarded with ridicule. The
situation seemed like it was beyond redemption, and the second-lady of Mo
was not able to withstand the blow, shortly choking to death because of the
trauma.

At this time, Mo XuanYu’s grandfather had already passed away. The first-
lady of Mo was in charge of the family, but, ever since a young age, she had
been unable to stand her younger sister, including her sister’s son. She had
an only child, Mo ZiYuan, who happened to be the person who ransacked the
place earlier. When Mo XuanYu was taken away by his father, the first-lady
was jealous, and wanted to have even the slightest relationship with a
cultivation Sect. She hoped that the envoy who came would take Mo ZiYuan
to cultivate as well.

Of course, she was refused, or rather, ignored.

This was most certainly not a case of selling cabbage. One simply can’t
bargain, much less buy one and get another for free.

Strangely confident, this family all held the thought that Mo ZiYuan had
potential and talent. They believed that if, back then, he was sent instead, he
would have won recognition from the Sect, unlike his disappointing cousin.
Although, when Mo XuanYu left, Mo ZiYuan was still young, he was
repeatedly instilled with nonsense such as this, and believed in them
wholeheartedly. Every two or three days, he would find Mo XuanYu and
humiliate him, cursing him for snatching his road to cultivation. At the same
time, he was found great interest in the talismans, elixirs, and magic tools,
regarding all of them as his possessions and doing whatever he wanted with
them.

Although Mo XuanYu often switched in and out of being a lunatic, he did

understand that he was degraded by others. He tolerated it, but Mo ZiYuan
further intensified his behaviour, almost emptying his whole room. His
patience had finally drained out and he complained to his aunt and uncle,
causing Mo ZiYuan’s commotion from this morning.

The words on the paper were small and compact, which hurt Wei WuXian’s
eyes. He thought to himself, “How fucked up is this person’s life?”

No wonder Mo XuanYu would rather use the forbidden technique to sacrifice

his body and ask villainous ghouls to take revenge.
The pain from his eyes transferred to his head. Supposedly, to use the
forbidden technique, the caster would chant their wish silently. As the evil
spirit being summoned, Wei WuXian should have been able to hear his
specific requirements.

However, it was likely that Mo XuanYu copied fragmented excerpts of the

technique somewhere, and skipped this step. Although Wei Wuxian guessed
that he wanted to take revenge on the Mo family, but how should he do it? To
what extent? To retrieve the items that were taken from him? Or to beat up
everyone of the Mo family?

Or… To wipe out the whole family?

In all likelihood, it was probably to wipe out the whole family. After all, anyone
who touched upon the cultivation world would know what phrases were used
most often to describe him—ungrateful, eccentric, not recognizing his own
family, intolerable by Heaven, and other spectacular terms. Was there anyone
else more “villainous” than him? If Mo XuanYu had dared to summon him
specifically, the wish was most likely not an easily fulfilled one.

Wei WuXian couldn’t help but to say, “You’ve got the wrong person…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Translator Notes:

*Array: a magical formation drawn on the ground to cast spells and such
*Sect Leader: the leader of an organization dedicated towards the practice of
cultivation

*Immortal: beings who gained immortality from cultivation practices

Aggression—Part One

Wei WuXian wanted to wash his face to have gaze upon the face of his body’s
owner after death, but there wasn’t any water in the room, not even for
drinking or washing.

The only basin-like container was probably, he suspected, for lavatory

purposes instead of cleansing.

He pushed the door, but it was fastened with a latch, probably to prevent him
from wandering outside.

None of these things made him feel the joy of reincarnation at all!

He figured that he might as well sit in the Lotus position* and get used to his
new home. Time flew by, and the day had passed. When he opened his eyes,
sunlight seeped inside from the gaps of the door and windows. Although he
could stand up and walk around, his still felt lightheaded.

Wei WuXian was puzzled, Mo XuanYu’s amount spiritual powers are

insignificant enough to be ignored, so there shouldn’t be a reason as to why I
can’t control this body properly. Why doesn’t it work?

Then, a noise came from his stomach, and he realized that this wasn’t related
to his spiritual powers at all. In fact, it was because this body had not
practiced inedia, and felt hunger. If he didn’t scavenge for food, he might
become the first villainous ghoul who starved to death upon arrival.
Wei WuXian lifted his foot and was about to kick the door open, when
suddenly, the sound of approaching footsteps appeared. Someone stomped
on the door and grunted, “It’s mealtime!”

Nonetheless, there was no indication of the door being opened. Wei WuXian
lowered his head and saw a miniature door on the bottom of this one opening,
with a small bowl set in front of it.

The servant outside shouted again, “Chop-chop! What are you waiting for?
Take the bowl out after you finish!”

The door was slightly smaller than the kind for dogs to crawl through—it didn’t
allow the passage of humans, but bowls could be easily taken inside. There
were two dishes and one serving of rice, which looked quite unpleasant.

Wei WuXian played with the pair of chopsticks that were stuck into the rice,
feeling quite bitter.

The YiLing Patriarch had just returned to the mortal world, but the first thing
he came upon was a kick and a scolding, not to mention the leftovers that
served as his welcoming-meal. Where were the blood and gore? The ruthless
slaughter? The absolute destruction? Who would believe him? He was like the
tiger in a flatland, the dragon in shallow water, the phoenix without feathers,
losing his advantage and belittled by those weaker than him.

Then, the servant outside spoke again, but with laughter this time, “A-Ding*!
Come here!”

*The prefix “A” (pronounced “ah”) can often be found in front of the names of
servants.
The sweet voice of a girl answered from a distance, “A-Tong, are you
delivering the meal to the one in there again?”

A-Tong clicked his tongue, “Why else would I come to this ominous
courtyard?”

A-Ding’s voice sounded closer, as if she was in front of the door, “You just
deliver one meal a day, and nobody cares if you’re lazy. This is such an idle
task, yet you think it’s ominous. Look at me. I’m busy to the point that I can’t
even go outside to play.”

A-Tong complained, “Delivering his meal is not the only work I do! How can
you dare to go outside these days? With so many walking corpses* out there,
everyone’s locking themselves in their houses.”

Wu WuXian squatted by the door and listened while eating.

It appeared to be that, ever since a while ago, the Mo Village hadn’t been
peaceful. Walking corpses, like their name, were dead people who could
move, a type of low-level altered corpse*. Unless the deceased person held
strong resentment, they were usually dull-eyed and sluggish. They weren’t
overly dangerous, but they were enough to alarm the average person,
especially their vomit-inducing stench.

However, to Wei WuXian, they were the most obeying puppets. When he
heard them being mentioned, he even felt a sense of familiarity.

A-Tong seemed to be making a face, “If you want to go outside, you’ll have to
take me so that I can protect you…”
A-Ding replied, “You? Protect me? Stop bragging. Are you sure you can
defeat those things?”

A-Tong said bitterly, “If I can’t defeat them, other people can’t either.”

A-Ding laughed, “How do you know that other people can’t defeat them? Let
me tell you—today, some cultivators came to Mo Village. I heard that they
were from a very prominent clan! The madam is talking to them in the main
hall, and everyone in town is watching. Can’t you hear the noise? I don’t have
time to play around with you; they might give me more work afterwards.”

Wei WuXian listened attentively. Sure enough, the faint bustling sounds of
people came from the east. He pondered for a moment, stood up, and kicked
the door. It cracked with a clank.

At the moment, the two servants, A-Ding and A-Tong, were flirting with each
other, and screamed when the door suddenly flung open. Wei WuXian threw
away his bowl and walked outside, flinching from the glare of the sunlight. He
brought his hand to the tip of his brow and closed his eyes for a moment. Just
now, A-Tong screamed even louder than A-Ding, but as he took a closer look
and realized that it was Mo XuanYu, the person whom everyone could
humiliate, his courage came back to him. He figured that he probably lost face
in front of A-Ding, and wanted to make up for it, so he jumped over and waved
his hands like he was reproaching a dog, “Shoo! Shoo! Go away! Why did you
come out?”

A-Tong treated him even worse than he treated a beggar or a fly. Most of the
time, all of the servants of the Mo family treated Mo XuanYu like this because
he never resisted. Wei WuXian gave A-Tong a light kick, knocking him over,
and laughed, “How daring of a mere errand-running child to humiliate others
like this.”

With that, he headed towards the commotion in the east. Quite a lot of people
crowded in and around the East Hall. Just as Wei WuXian stepped into the
courtyard, a woman spoke in a voice a few pitches louder than the others’, “A
member from the younger generations of our family use to be a cultivator as
well…”

It must have been Madam Mo trying to make connections with the cultivation
family again. Wei WuXian didn’t wait for her to finish speaking, and quickly
hustled through the crowd, into the hall, and grinned, “I’m coming, I’m coming.
Right here!”

A middle-aged lady sat in the hall, with well maintained health and wearing
extravagant clothing. She was Madam Mo. Her husband sat below her, and
the opposite side sat a few white-robed boys*. Because of how an unkempt
freak just appeared from within the people, all of the chatter came to a halt,
but Wei WuXian spoke shamelessly, as if he did not notice the motionless
atmosphere at all, “Who was calling me earlier? I am the only one who use to
be a cultivator!”

*In this case, the word “boys” refers to older youths in their teenage years.

There was too much powder on his face, and as he smiled, the powder
sprinkled off. A younger cultivator was on the brink of laughing, letting out
a pfft sound. His face grew serious again as another one, seemingly the
leader of the group, gave him a disapproving look.

Wei WuXian followed the voice and scanned over. He thought that the
servants were being ignorant and exaggerated the situation, but he was
surprised to see that they were really disciples of a “prominent clan”.

The boys wore robes with drifting sleeves and flowing belts, appearing to be
ikemen and doubtlessly a treat to the eyes. Looking at the uniform, it was
obvious that they were from the GusuLan clan. They must have also been
younger generations of blood-relationship to the Lan family, as they all wore
white forehead ribbons around a finger’s width, with cloud patterns sewn onto
them.
The motto of the GusuLan clan was “righteousness”. The forehead ribbon
implied to “conduct oneself well”, and the cloud pattern was the official pattern
of the Lan family, of which cultivators who came from other families did not
have the right to wear. Wei WuXian got toothaches whenever he saw anybody
from the Lan clan. In his past life, he had always thought of his clan’s uniform
as “mourning clothes”, which was why he would never mistake it.

Lady Mo hadn’t seen this nephew of hers in a while, and only got over her
dismay after a long time, when she realized who the heavily-makeuped
person was. She was furious, but she didn’t want to lose her temper and
discompose herself, so she lowered her voice at her husband, “Who let him
out? Get him back there!”

Her husband promptly smiled to calm her and walked over with an irksome
look, ready to pull him out of here. However, Wei WuXian suddenly dropped
to the ground, his limbs tightly clinging to the floor. Nobody could get him up,
even after more servants were called to help. As Lady Mo’s face darkened bit
by bit, her husband was also sweating. He scolded, “… You… Damn
madman! If you don’t go back now, wait and see how I’ll punish you!”

Although everyone in the Mo Village knew that the Mo family had a young
master who lost his marbles, Mo XuanYu had already hid in that dark room for
a couple of years, scared to come outside. After seeing how both his face and
actions were like those of a monster’s, the people whispered among
themselves, looking forward to a good show to watch. Wei WuXian spoke, “I
could go back if you wanted me to,” he pointed at Mo ZiYuan, “But tell him to
return the things that he stole from me first.”

Mo ZiYuan did not expect that the good-for-nothing lunatic had the guts to
cause trouble here, even after his disciplining yesterday. His face grew pale,
“That’s nonsense! When did I ever steal your things? Would, would I need to
steal anything from you?”

Wei WuXian said, “Yeah, yeah. You didn’t steal, you robbed!”
Madam Mo didn’t say anything yet, but Mo ZiYuan was furious, raising his foot
to kick him. However, a white-robed boy carrying a sword moved his finger
slightly, and Mo ZiYuan’s feet slipped, falling to the ground with his foot only
scraping him. Even so, Wei WuXian still rolled on the ground, as if he was
really kicked over, and pulled open the front of his robe, showing the footprint
that Mo ZiYuan made yesterday.

The others thought that, obviously, Mo XuanYu couldn’t have kicked himself.
Along with the fact that Mo ZiYuan had always been imprudent and arrogant,
who else could have done it? No matter what, the Mo family had been being
too ruthless to their own blood relative. It was plain to see that, when he first
came back, he wasn’t this insane, and so it must have been worsened by the
people of this family. Nevertheless, all is well as long as there was a good
show to watch. This one was much more interesting than the cultivators!

Before this, Madam Mo ignored him, as she didn’t bother to argue with a sick
person. She ordered the others to take him out. Now she knew—Mo XuanYu
had definitely come prepared. His head was completely clear and deliberately
disgraced them. She felt both shock and hatred, “You made a big scene on
purpose, didn’t you?”

Wei WuXian replied blankly, “He stole my belongings, and I’m here to retrieve
them. Does that also count as making a big scene?”

With so many pairs of eyes staring, Madam Mo could neither hit him nor throw
him out. Anger welled up deep inside her, and she could only forcefully
compromise the two sides, “Stealing? Robbing? That’s a bit disrespectful, if
you ask me. We are all part of one family, and he only wanted to take a look
at them. A-Yuan* is your younger brother, so what’s wrong with taking a few
of your things? As an older brother, you shouldn’t be reluctant to lend one or
two playthings, should you? It’s not as if he won’t return them.”
*The “A” prefix can also be used to refer to someone you’re close to. A-Yuan
refers to Mo ZiYuan.

The boys from the Lan clan stared speechlessly at one another. These young
boys grew up in a cultivation clan, exposed to splendor and that only. They’d
probably never seen farces like this, or even heard of this kind of logic. Wei
WuXian laughed hysterically in his mind, and extended his hand, “Then, return
them.”

Of course, it was impossible for Mo ZiYuan to return anything, having either

thrown them out or disassembled them. Even if he was able to return them,
his pride wouldn’t have allowed it. His face turned purple with anger and he
shouted, “… Mom!” His glare raged, are you really allowing him to treat me
like this?

Lady Mo glowered at him, signaling for him to not worsen the situation.
However, Wei WuXian spoke again, “Not only should he not have stolen my
belongings, he shouldn’t have stolen them in the middle of the night. Everyone
knows that I am into men. Even if he was not ashamed, I knew to not look
suspicious.”

Lady Mo gasped and shouted, “What are you talking about, in front of the
villagers? How shameless—A-Yuan is your cousin!”

In terms of running wild, Wei WuXian was definitely a master. In the past, if he
wanted to run wild, he would have to keep his status in mind, but now, he was
a lunatic anyways, which meant that he could do whatever he wanted to,
whichever way he wanted. He stiffened his neck and argued defiantly, “Even
though he knew that I was his cousin, he chose to not avoid me, so who was
more shameless? I don’t care about your reputation, but don’t ruin my
innocence! I still want to find a good man!”

Mo ZiYuan let out a loud scream and started swinging a chair at him. As soon
as Wei WuXian saw that his anger finally went out of control, he rolled over
and climbed up, dodging so that the chair only smashed on the ground, falling
apart in the process. The mass of people in the East Hall were originally
gloating at the disgrace of the Mo family, but, after the fight started, they’d all
fled away. Wei WuXian bolted towards the group of boys from the Lan clan,
who all gaped at the scene, and yelled, “Did everyone see that? Did you? The
burglar is also beating someone up! How heartless!”

Mo ZiYuan chased him, and was close to pouncing on him, when the leader of
the boys hurriedly stopped him, “Please calm down. Words are more powerful
than weapons.”

Madam Mo saw that the boy was deliberately protecting the lunatic, and
pulled a smile warily, “This is my younger sister’s son. He’s not so bright here;
everyone from the Mo Village knows that he is a lunatic, and often speaks
strange words that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Cultivator, please…”

Before she finished her sentence, Wei WuXian’s head peeked from behind
the boy’s back and glared, “Who said that my words shouldn’t be taken
seriously? Next time, try stealing anything from me again. You steal once, and
I cut off one of your hands!”

Mo ZiYuan was originally held down by his father, but, after hearing this, he
was close to losing his temper again. Wei WuXian lept outside quickly, and
the boy blocked the entrance at once, switching to another topic with a serious
tone, “Then, we will borrow the West Courtyard for the night. Please
remember the things that I’ve talked about—after nightfall, close all of the
windows, don’t come outside, or worse, walk toward the courtyard.”

Madam Mo was shaking from anger, “Yes, yes, please…” Mo ZiYuan found it
beyond belief, “Mom! The lunatic insulted me in front of so many people, and
that’s it? You told me before; you told me that he was only a…”

Madam Mo commanded, “Be quiet. Can’t you wait until we go back?”

Mo ZiYuan had never been at such a disadvantage or been disgraced like this
before, with his mother’s scolding making the situation worse. He was full of
hatred, and thought, this lunatic is going down tonight!

After Wei WuXian finished flipping out, he walked out the door of the Mo
family’s place, and showed his face around the Mo village. Although he
surprised countless people, he was, in fact, loving every second of it, and
finally realized the delight of being a lunatic. He was even starting to approve
of the makeup that resembled a hanged ghost, almost unwilling to wash it
away. He fixed his hair and looked at his wrists. The cuts didn’t seem like they
were healing at all, which meant that a slight revenge like this would not be
approved by the forbidden technique.

Would he really have to eliminate the Mo family?

To be honest, it wouldn’t be too difficult of a task.

Wei WuXian strolled back to the Mo family’s West Courtyard. The disciples of
the Lan clan were standing on top of the roofs and walls, discussing with a
solemn look.

Although the GusuLan clan contributed greatly during the siege on him, at that
time, these juniors were either not born yet or still young children. He
shouldn’t direct his hate towards them, so Wei WuXian decided to linger
around and observe what they were going to do. After a while, he felt like
something was wrong.

Why did the fluttering black flags on top of the roofs and walls look so familiar
to him?
This type of flags was called the “Phantom Attraction Flag”. If it was set on a
living person, it would attract all of the spirits, wronged ghosts, moving
corpses, or evil beings within a certain area, so that they would only attack
that person. Because the flag-bearing person would be turned into a living
target, it was also called the “Target Flag.” It could also be set on a house, but
the house must have living humans inside of it. Then, the attack range would
expand to include everyone inside the house. Because of how there would
always be a sinister energy that surrounded the area in which the flag was set
in, as if there was a swirling black wind, they were also called “Black Wind
Flags”. Arranging the flag formation in the West Courtyard and not allowing
anyone to approach them must have meant that they wanted to lead the
Walking Corpses here and capture them in one go.

As for why they looked familiar… How could they have not come across as
familiar? The creator of Phantom Attraction Flags was none other than the
YiLing Patriarch!

It seemed like that, although the cultivation world hated him on the surface,
they still used the the inventions that he came up with.

A disciple standing on the roof saw him lingering around, and spoke, “Please
go back. This isn’t where a person like you should come.”

Although he was being driven away, it was out of kindness, and the tone also
differed from those of the servants in the Mo family. Wei WuXian caught him
off guard and quickly hopped up, grabbing one of the flags.

The disciple was startled and jumped down to chase him, “Do not move. That
is not something you should take.”

Wei WuXian yelled while running away, looking like a real lunatic with his hair
disheveled and limbs flinging about, “I’m not giving it back, I’m not giving it
back! I want this thing! I want this!”
The disciple caught up to him in a few strides and grabbed his arm, “If you are
not going to give it back, I am going to hit you!”

Wei WuXian held onto the flag, unwilling to let go of it. The leader of the boys
was setting up the flag formation, and lightly hopped off the roof when he
heard of the ruckus, “JingYi, cut it out. Do not make a fuss about it and just
take the flag.”

Lan JingYi spoke, “SiZhui, I did not actually hit him! Look at him, messing up
the flag formation!”

During the tug-of-war, Wei WuXian had already checked over the Phantom
Attraction Flag in his hands. The motifs were drawn correctly and the
incantations were complete. There wasn’t any errors, so nothing would go
wrong while using them. However, the person who drew on the flag was
lacking in experience, so it would only attract evil being and moving corpses
from within five li*. That should be enough, though. There shouldn’t be any
malicious creatures in a place as small as the Mo Village.

Lan SiZhui smiled at him, “Young Master Mo, the sky is growing dark, and we
are going to start capturing the walking corpses soon. It will be dangerous at
night time, so it would be best for you to return to your room.”

Wei WuXian looked him over. He was fair and refined, with a dignified
appearance and smiling faintly. Wei WuXian silently approved of him. The flag
formation was set in an organized way, and his mannerisms were also
respectful, making him a disciple with astonishing potential. He didn’t know
that, at a conservative clan such as the Lan clan, who on Earth brought up
such a junior.
Lan SiZhui spoke again, “This flag…” Before he finished, Wei WuXian threw
the Phantom Attraction Flag onto the ground and humphed, “It’s just a flag, so
what’s the big deal? I can draw way better than this!”

He sprinted off the moment he threw the flag away. The boys who stood on
the roof to watch the bustle almost fell off from the laughter, after hearing his
ridiculous words. Lan JingYi also chuckled from anger and picked up the
Phantom Attraction Flag, “What a maniac!”

Wei WuXian continued to roam around, doing nothing, and finally moved back
to the small courtyard that belonged to Mo XuanYu.

He ignored the broken bolt and the mess on the ground, picked a relatively
clean spot, and sat in the lotus position again.

However, before daylight came, he was pulled out of meditation by some

noise from the outside.

A series of chaotic footsteps quickly approached, along with cries and

screams. Wei WuXian heard a few phrases being repeated, “… Barge in and
drag him out!” “Notify the officers!” “What do you mean ‘notify the officers’?
Beat him to death!”

He opened his eyes to see that a few servants had already came in.

The whole courtyard was set alight with fire. Someone cried out, “Drag the
insane murderer to the Main Hall and make him pay for it with his life!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
Lotus position: a cross-legged position for meditation purposes

*Altered corpse: a corpse that had become alive, usually due to human
interference

*The “A” prefix can also be used to refer to someone you’re close to. A-Yuan
refers to Mo ZiYuan.

*one li is 500 meters or 1/3 of a mile.

Aggression—Part Two

Wei WuXian’s first thought was that something went wrong with the flag
formation that the boys set up.

His inventions needed to be used extremely carefully, or else disasters could

happen. This was also why he went to check if there was anything wrong with
the motifs that were drawn.

As a few pairs of big hands came to drag him outside, Wei WuXian
straightened his body and allowed them to do so without difficulty, so that he
wouldn’t have to walk by himself. The East Hall was bustling with people,
almost more crowded than when the villagers of Mo Village gathered here. All
of the servants and relatives were present. Some were still in their
undergarments and didn’t yet have the time to brush their hair, but everyone
looked terrified. Madam Mo was collapsed in her seat, as if she just woke up
from a swoon. The streaks of tears could be seen on her cheeks, and tears
still lingered in her eyes. But, as Wei WuXian was dragged inside, her
sorrowful gaze immediately became hateful.

A human-shaped object lay on the ground, with its body covered by a white
cloth and only the head being revealed. Lan SiZhui and the other boys wore
heavy expressions, bending down to check the situation and talking in soft
voices. The conversation leaked into Wei WuXian’s ears.

“… Less than three minutes have passed since the body was discovered?”

“After subduing the walking corpse, we hurried from the West Courtyard to the
East Courtyard, and found the corpse by the hallway.”
The human-shaped thing was, apparently, Mo ZiYuan. Wei WuXian took one
glance at it, and couldn’t help but to look again.

The corpse looked like Mo ZiYuan in some ways, but unlike him in other ways.
Although the features were clearly that of his petty cousin’s, the cheekbones
were deeply sunken, eyes bulging, and skin wrinkled. Compared to the
youthful Mo ZiYuan before this, it was as if he aged twenty years. It also
seemed like his blood and flesh were sucked out of him, turning him into a
skeleton with only a thin layer of skin on the outside. If, before this, Mo ZiYuan
was just ugly, now, his corpse was both old and ugly.

As Wei WuXian was scrutinizing the corpse, Madam Mo suddenly rushed

towards him, with a gleaming dagger in her hand. Being light on his feet, Lan
SiZhui quickly knocked the dagger off. Before he had a chance to talk, Madam
Mo shrieked at him, “My son died a tragic death, so I am only avenging him!
What are you stopping me for?”

Wei WuXian hid behind Lan SiZhui’s back again, and spoke while squatting,
“How does your son’s tragic death concern me?”

During the day, Lan SiZhui saw Wei WuXian make a scene in the East Hall,
and, afterwards, he also heard a lot of exaggerated rumours from other
people. He felt extremely sympathetic to the invalid, and couldn’t help but to
take his side, “Madam Mo, seeing from your son’s condition, his flesh and
essence have been drawn out of him, which means that he was killed by evil
beings, not him.”

Madam Mo’s chest heaved, “You know nothing! The lunatic’s father was a
cultivator. He must have learned a lot of demonic spells from him!”

Lan SiZhui turned around to look at the seemingly dull-witted Wei WuXian,
and spoke again, “Uhm, Madam, there is a lack of evidence, so…”
“The evidence is on my son!” Madam Mo pointed at the corpse on the ground,
“Look for yourselves! A-Yuan’s remains already told me who murdered him!”

Not needing other people to do it, Wei WuXian lifted the white cloth by
himself, from the head down to the feet. There was something missing on Mo
ZiYuan’s dead body.

His left arm, severed from below his shoulder, had disappeared!

Madam Mo spoke, “Do you see this? Everyone who were here heard what the
lunatic said, right? He said that, if A-Yuan touched his belongings again, he
would cut off his hand!”

After the burst of emotion, she covered her face and sobbed, “… My poor A-
Yuan… Although he didn’t do anything to him at all, he was not only framed,
but also killed as well… The lunatic is out of his mind…”

Out of his mind!

It had been a few years since he last heard the phrase being used to describe
him, so it was quite cordial. Wei WuXian pointed at himself, but no words
came to him. He didn’t know if he was the ill one or if it was Madam Mo.

When he was younger, he talked quite a lot about exterminating entire

families and clans, killing millions of people, creating rivers of blood, and other
cruel actions. But, most of the time, they were empty words. If he could
actually do the things that he said, he would have long been dominating the
cultivation world. Madam Mo’s true intention wasn’t to avenge for him, but to
find someone to let out her resentment on.
Wu WuXian didn’t want to be bothered with her. He thought for a moment,
and stuck his hand into Mo ZiYuan’s arms. He fished around for a moment
and pulled something out, unfolding it in front of him. Surprisingly, it was a
Phantom Attraction Flag.

Instantly, he realized what was going on, and uttered under his breath, he had
it coming!

When Lan SiZhui and the others saw what was taken out of Mo ZiYuan’s
arms, they also understood the situation. Associating this with the farce that
happened today, the cause was easy to guess. During the day, Mo ZiYuan
lost face because of Mo XuanYu’s crazy behavior and loathed him, still
wanting to square up with him. However, Mo XuanYu wandered outside for a
long while, so Mo ZiYuan planned to sneak up on him at night, when he would
be returning.

When night had fallen, he secretly went outside, and was passing the West
Courtyard when he saw the Phantom Attraction Flags on the walls. Although
he was repeatedly told not to go outside or near the West Courtyard at night,
and especially to stay away from these black flags, Mo ZiYuan thought that he
was told to do so because they were scared of people stealing the valuable
weapons.

He had no idea about the dangerous effects of these Phantom Attraction

Flags, or that if he held it, he would be turned into a living target. He got
addicted to stealing his cousin’s talismans and magic tools, and he would
always itch to take odd items like this, not giving up until he obtained it.
Therefore, when the owners of the flags were subduing walking corpses in the
West Courtyard, he quietly took one.

The flag formation utilized six flags, of which five were set in the West
Courtyard, with the boys from the Lan family as baits. However, they were all
carrying countless magic tools on them, and, although Mo ZiYuan only took a
single flag, he didn’t have any tools for protection on him. It was common
sense to pick on the weak, so the evil beings would naturally be attracted to
him. If there were only walking corpses, then it wouldn’t matter too much.
Even if he was bitten, he wouldn’t die immediately and could still be saved.
Unfortunately, the Phantom Attraction Flag accidentally attracted something
worse than a walking corpse. The unknown being was what killed Mo ZiYuan
and took his arm!

Wei WuXian raised his wrist. Sure enough, one of the cuts on his right hand
had healed. It looked like that he had scored a lucky hit—the sacrificial
contract had already deemed the death of Mo ZiYuan as his doing.

Madam Mo was well aware of her son’s foibles, but she wasn’t willing to admit
that Mo ZiYuan caused his own death. Due to impatience and rage, she
grabbed a teacup and threw it in the direction of Wei WuXian’s head, “If you
didn’t frame him in front of so many people yesterday, would he go out in the
middle of the night? It’s all your fault, you son of a bitch!”

Wei WuXian saw it coming, and dodged to the side. Madam Mo turned to Lan
SiZhui and screeched, “And you! You bunch of useless fools! You cultivate
and ward off evil spirits, but you can’t even protect him! A-Yuan is still a
child*!”

*The actual word used here meant “from ten-years-old to nineteen-years-old”,

but, although they say “in one’s twenties”, people don’t say “in one’s tens”, so
the word was replaced by “a child” instead.

The boys were still young. They hadn’t been outside much and were too
inexperienced to find anything wrong with the area, which was why they felt
sorry for not detecting an evil being as fierce as this one. Nonetheless, after
Madam Mo’s senseless scolding, they all looked blue in the face. After all,
they grew up in a prominent family, so nobody dared to treat them like this.
The GusuLan Clan was extremely strict to its disciples, forbidding violence
against the powerless every man, not even allowing disrespect. Therefore,
even if they felt displeased, they had to keep everything down with dark
expressions.
However, Wei WuXian couldn’t stand it any longer, and thought, it has been
so many years, but the Lan Clan’s values are still the same. What’s the use
their so-called “self-restraint”? Watch me do this the right way!

He spat loudly and spoke, “Who do you think you’re taking out your anger on?
Did you really see them as your servants? They traveled far and wide to come
here and exorcise evil spirits for you without taking a penny. Do they owe you
anything? How old is your son? He should be at least seventeen, and so, how
is he still a ‘child’? How young of a child does he have to be to not understand
basic human language? Did they or did they not repeatedly instruct him to not
touch anything in the formation and not approach the West Courtyard? Your
son sneaked outside at night on his own. Is it my fault? Or is it his?”

Lan JingYi and the others let out a breath of air, faces not so dark anymore.
Madam Mo was both extremely mournful and resentful, and all she could think
about was the word “death.” Not her own death so that she could be with her
son, but the deaths of everyone in the world, especially the ones in front of her
right now.

She had a habit of ordering her husband to do everything, and so she

knocked him, “Call everyone! Call everyone inside!”

Even so, her husband was in a trance. Possibly because of the trauma from
his only child passing away, he went as far as to backhandedly push her. It
caught Madam Mo by surprise, and she fell onto the ground.

In the past, Madam Mo didn’t even need to push him. If she just raised her
voice, he would comply immediately. How could he dare to strike back today?

The servants were all scared out of their wits from her expression. A-Ding
helped her up while quivering. Madam Mo clutched her chest and spoke in a
trembling voice, “You… You… You, get out of here as well!”
Her husband seemed like he didn’t hear anything. A-Ding gave a few looks to
A-Tong, and A-Tong hurriedly helped his master to walk outside. The East
Hall was in chaos. As Wei WuXian saw that the family had finally silenced, he
intended to examine the corpse again. However, before he took another look
at it, another high-pitched scream pierced through the air. It was from the
courtyard.

The people in the hall all rushed outside. On the ground of the East Courtyard,
there were two twitching bodies. The first was that of A-Tong’s, still alive,
collapsed on the ground. The other fallen body was wrinkled and withered, as
if the blood and the flesh had been emptied dry. The left arm was already
gone, but no blood came out of the wound. The condition of the corpse was
the same as Mo ZiYuan’s.

Madam Mo brushed off A-Ding’s supporting hand a second ago, but as she
saw the corpse on the ground, her eyes widened, and she was finally out of
energy to throw another fit. As she fainted, Wei WuXian happened to be next
to her, and gave her a hand, passing her to A-Ding, who came running. He
looked at his right hand to see that another one of the cuts was also gone.

It was merely a few seconds before they walked over the threshold of the hall,
not even past the East Courtyard yet, and saw Madam Mo’s husband die
distressingly. Lan SiZhui, Lan JingYi, and the others also grew pale in the
face. Lan SiZhui was the first to calm down and asked A-Tong, who lay on the
ground, “Did you see what it was?”

A-Tong was almost scared to death, unable to open his mouth. Even after a
few moments of asking, A-Tong still couldn’t answer, and only shook his head
repeatedly. Lan SiZhui was burning with anxiety. He asked another disciple to
take him back inside, and turned to Lan JingYi, “Did you send the signal?”
Lan JingYi answered, “I did, but if there are no seniors who can assist us in
the area, it would take at least an hour for our people to come here. What
should we do now? We don’t even know what it was.”

Of course, it would be impossible for them to leave. If the disciples of a clan

only cared about their own well-being when facing evil spirits, it would not only
be bringing disgrace upon the clan, they themselves would also be ashamed
to face others. The frightened people of the Mo family couldn’t go either,
because it was likely that the evil being was among them, so nothing would be
gained from going away. Lan SiZhui gritted his teeth, “Wait here, for the
reinforcements!”

Now that the signal for help had been sent, other cultivators would come to
aid them within a short period of time. To prevent things from getting out of
hand, Wei WuXian should withdraw and keep away from the situation. If the
persons who came happened to know him or fought with him before, it would
be hard to say what was going to happen next.

However, with the curse, he couldn’t leave Mo Village anytime soon. In

addition, the being that was attracted here had taken the lives of two people
within such a short amount of time, which meant that it must have been
extremely vicious. If Wei WuXian left now, when the helpers came, the streets
of Mo Village might be packed with corpses who lost their left arms, including
a few disciples of blood relations to the GusuLan Clan as well.

After pondering for a moment, Wei WuXian told himself, finish it quickly.

Aggression—Part Three

The boys on the side were all young and inexperienced. However, although
they all looked nervous, they strictly stuck to their positions and protected the
Mo family’s house, fixing talismans onto the walls. The servant named A-Tong
was already carried into the hall. Lan SiZhui felt his pulse with his left hand
and supported Madame Mo’s back with his right. He couldn’t save both of
them at once, and was in a terrible fix when A-Tong crawled up from the
ground.

A-Ding exclaimed, “A-Tong, you’re awake!”

Before her face had the time to light up, A-Tong raised his left hand and
clutched his own neck.

Seeing this, Lan SiZhui tapped on a few of his acupoints for three times. Wei
WuXian knew that, although they looked gentle, the people from the Lan clan
had arm strength that were the opposite of gentle. With a force like this, it
would be hard for anyone to move. However, A-Tong seemed like he didn’t
feel anything, and his left hand’s grip tightened, his expressions looking more
painful and twisted. Lan JingYi proceeded to grab his left hand, but it was like
breaking off a chunk of iron, having no effect at all. After a moment,
a crack came from his neck, and A-Tong’s head drooped down. His neck was
already broken.

He actually strangled himself in front everyone’s eyes!

Seeing the situation, A-Ding’s voice wavered, “… A ghost! There’s an invisible

ghost here. It made A-Tong strangle himself!”
Her tone was sharp and her voice was shrill, making everyone’s blood run
cold, and so they believed it effortlessly. Wei WuXian’s judgement happened
to be the opposite—it wasn’t a ferocious ghost.

He had examined the talismans that the boys chose; all of them were spirit-
fending ones, and the East Hall was literally covered with them. If it really was
a ferocious ghost, then, as it went into the East Hall, the talismans would have
incinerated green flames. Yet, nothing was happening right now.

It was not the group of kids’ fault for reacting too slow, but the creature was
indeed cruel. The cultivation world had a strict definition for the category of
“ferocious ghosts”—they had to kill at least one person a month and continue
the behaviour for at least three months. The criterion was set by Wei WuXian
himself, and it was probably still being used. He was the best at dealing with
this kind. To him, killing one person in seven days would be considered as a
ferocious ghost who killed frequently. This thing killed three people at once,
and within such a short period of time. It would be hard for even a capable
cultivator to think of a solution immediately, let alone these juniors who had
just started their careers.

As he was thinking, the candlelight flickered. A sinister wind passed, and all of
the lanterns and candles in the courtyard and the East Hall died out.

The moment the lights were extinguished, screams came from everywhere.
Everyone pushed and pulled, wanting to escape as fast as they could,
stumbling and falling in the process. Lan JingYi shouted, “Stay where you are
and don’t run! I’m gonna catch whoever runs!”

He wasn’t merely saying this to alarm the people. In fact, evil beings loved to
cause trouble in the dark and make profits in times of trouble. The worse the
crying and chaos, the more likely it was to unknowingly attract danger. At
times like this, being isolated or becoming nervous was extremely unsafe.
However, everyone was frightened to death, so how could they still have ears
for words like this? After a while, the East Hall grew quiet, with only a few light
breaths and faint sobs. It was likely that only a few people were left.

Amidst the dark, a fire lit up suddenly. Lan SiZhui ignited a Flame Talisman.

The fire from the Flame Talisman would not be extinguished by sinister winds.
He used the talisman to light up the candle again, and the rest of the boys
went to comfort the others. Under the light, Wei WuXian casually looked at his
wrists. Another cut had healed.

After looking, he suddenly realized that there was something wrong about the
number of cuts.

Originally, he had two cuts on each of his wrists. One healed when Mo ZiYuan
died, and another healed when Mo ZiYuan’s father died. The death of the
servant, A-Tong, healed one more of the cuts. Adding it up, only three cuts
should have healed, with the last cut being the deepest and most hate-filled
one.

But, right now, no cuts remained on his wrists.

Wei WuXian knew that Madame Mo was definitely one of Mo XuanYu’s

targets of vengeance. The longest and deepest cut was probably saved for
her. Yet, it had disappeared.

Did Mo XuanYu suddenly reach a point of epiphany and let go of his hate?
That’d be impossible. His soul had already been sacrificed as the price for
summoning Wei WuXian. Only the death of Madame Mo could heal the
wound.
His gaze slowly moved towards the pale-faced Madame Mo, who recently
woke up and was surrounded by everyone.

Unless, she was already dead.

Wei WuXian was sure that something was already possessing Madame Mo’s
body. If the being wasn’t a spirit, then what was it?

Suddenly, A-Ding cried, “Hand… His hand! A-Tong’s hand!”

Lan SiZhui moved the Flame Talisman to above A-Tong’s body. Sure enough,
his left hand had disappeared as well.

Left hand!

With lightning speed, Wei WuXian’s mind became clear, with the being that
was wrecking havoc and the missing left arms finally completing the puzzle.
He promptly bursted out laughing. Lan JingYi snapped, “You idiot! How can
you still laugh in a situation like this?” But, after a second thought, he knew
that he was an idiot anyways, so what’s the use of haggling over him?

Wei WuXian tugged at his sleeve, “No, no!”

Lan JingYi was annoyed, pulling his sleeve back, “What ‘no’? You’re not an
idiot? Stop fooling around! Nobody has the time to pay attention to you.”

Wei WuXian pointed at the corpses of Mo ZiYuan’s father and A-Tong, which
lay on the ground, and spoke, “These are not them.”
Lan SiZhui stopped the fuming Lan JingYi and asked, “What do you mean by
‘these are not them’?”

Wei WuXian stated solemnly, “This is not Mo ZiYuan’s dad, and this is not A-
Tong either.”

With his makeup-covered face, the more solemn he looked, the more he
seemed like an actual lunatic. Yet, surrounded by the dim candlelight, his
words sent chills up everyone’s backs. Lan SiZhui stared for a second, and
asked in spite of himself, “Why?”

Wei WuXian exclaimed proudly, “Their hands. None of them were left-handed.
I’m sure of this, because they’d always hit me with their right hands.”

Lan JingYi spat, running out of patience, “What are you being proud for? Look
at how complacent you are!”

However, Lan SiZhui broke into a sweat. Thinking back, A-Tong had used his
left hand to strangle himself, and Madame Mo’s husband also used his left
hand to push his wife.

But, during the day, when Mo XuanYu was causing trouble in the East Hall,
the two were rushing to get him out of there, both using their right hands. It
was impossible for them to suddenly turn left-handed before they died.

Although he didn’t know why, in order to figure out what the creature was,
they had to think in the direction of “left hands.” After Lan SiZhui realized this,
he felt surprised and looked at Wei WuXian. He couldn’t help but to
think, suddenly saying this… It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.
Wei WuXian only smiled. He knew that the hint was too deliberate, but he
couldn’t have helped it. The good thing was that Lan SiZhui didn’t think too
much about it either, and thought, anyways, if Young Master Mo was willing to
remind me of it, he probably didn’t mean any harm. His eyes moved away
from him, passing A-Ding, who fainted from crying too much, and landed on
Madame Mo.

His gaze traveled from her face down to her hands. Her arms were hanging
down and were mostly hidden inside her sleeves, with only half of the fingers
showing. Her right hand had fair, thin fingers, undoubtedly those of a woman
who lived comfortably and never worked.

However, the fingers on her left hand were much longer than the ones on her
right. They were also thicker. The knuckles were bent, full of power.

The hand isn’t that of a woman’s—it was a man’s hand!

Lan SiZhui commanded, “Take hold of her!”

A few boys grabbed Madame Mo. Lan SiZhui said “excuse me” and was
prepared to slap down a talisman when Madame Mo’s left hand suddenly
twisted in an absurd way, aiming for his throat.

Unless one’s bones had been broken, it was impossible for a living person to
twist their arm like this. She attacked quickly, and was extremely close to
grabbing onto his neck, when at the same time, Lan JingYi shouted “hey” and
threw himself in front of Lan SiZhui, blocking the hand for him.

A flash passed, and as soon as the arm grabbed Lan JingYi’s shoulder, green
flames ignited on his arm, making it loosen its grip. Lan SiZhui escaped death,
and was about to thank Lan JingYi for it, when he saw that half of the latter’s
uniform had already been burnt to ashes, looking quite awkward. Lan JingYi
took off the other half of his uniform and scolded, fuming with rage, “Why did
you kick me, you lunatic? Did you want to kill me?”

Wei WuXian scampered away like a frightened rat, “It wasn’t me!”

It was him. Inside of the Lan clan’s uniform jacket, there were compact
stitchings of incantations using thin threads of the same color, included for
protection. However, against strong ones like this, it could only be used once
before it became invalid. During the emergency, he could only kick Lan JingYi
and use his body to protect Lan SiZhui’s neck. Lan JingYi wanted to scold him
again, but Madame Mo fell onto the ground, with all of the blood and flesh on
her face being drained until only a thin layer of skin was left on the skull. The
male arm that didn’t belong to her had fallen off her shoulders. Its fingers bent
freely, as if it was stretching or exercising, and the throbs of its veins were
clearly visible.

This was the evil being that the Phantom Attraction Flag had attracted.

Being dismembered was a classic example of a distressing death. It was only

somewhat more dignified than the way Wei WuXian died. Unlike the situation
of being crushed to powder, the limbs and parts of the corpse would be
tainted with some of the resentment of the person who died, and it would want
to reunite with the other parts and die with a whole corpse. Therefore, it would
come up with strategies to find the other parts of the body. If it found it, it
might be satisfied and rest in peace, or it might stir up more trouble. If it
couldn’t find it, the body part would have to put up with the second best
option.

What would the second best option be? It would have to make do with the
bodies of living humans.

It was like this left hand—eat the left hand of a living person, and replace it.
After draining all of the person’s blood and energy, it would abandon the body
and find another container for parasitism, until it finally collected all of the
other parts of its corpse.

As soon as the arm had possessed a person, they would die immediately.
But, before all of the flesh had been eaten, they would still be able to walk
around, under its control, as if the person was still alive. After it was attracted,
the first container that it found was Mo ZiYuan. The second one was Mo
ZiYuan’s father. When Madame Mo told her husband to go away, he acted out
of the norm and pushed her. Wei WuXian originally thought that it was
because he was grieving his son’s death and also tired of his wife’s
arrogance. Now that he thought about it again, it wasn’t what a father who had
just lost his son should look like. It wasn’t the indifference from feeling
hopeless. It was a deadly tranquility—the tranquility coming from an already-
deceased person.

The third container was A-Tong, and the fourth one was Madame Mo. During
the chaos from when the lights suddenly went out, the ghost hand had
transferred onto her body. When Madame Mo died, the last cut on Wei
WuXian’s wrists also disappeared.

The boys from the Lan clan saw that, although talismans didn’t work, clothing
did, and all took off their coats to cover the left hand. The layers of clothing
looked like a white cocoon. After a second, the ball of white clothes ignited
with a whoosh, creating a green, abnormal inferno. Although it would take
care of the moment, after a while, when the uniforms were completely burnt,
the hand would emerge from within the ashes. While nobody was looking, Wei
WuXian ran towards the West Courtyard.

The ten-or-so walking corpses that were subdued by the boys stood silently in
the courtyard, sealed by the incantations drawn on the ground. Wei WuXian
kicked one of the symbols, destroying the entire formation. He clapped twice.
Suddenly, with a jolt, the whites of the walking corpses’ eyes all turned
upward, as if they were woken up by a bolt of thunder.

Wei WuXian spoke, “Wake up. It’s time to work!”

He usually didn’t need complex incantations to control these corpse puppets
—a straightforward command would do as well. The walking corpses in front
of him moved a few quivering steps. But, as they approached Wei WuXian,
their legs grew weak and they collapsed onto the ground, as if they were real
humans.

Wei WuXian found it both funny and annoying. He clapped his hands again,
this time lighter. However, these walking corpses were probably born in Mo
Village and died here as well, not having experienced life fully. They
instinctively followed the summoner’s commands, but were also horrified at
the summoner, lying on the ground and afraid to get up.

The crueler the being was, the better Wei WuXian could control it. These
walking corpses hadn’t been trained by him and couldn’t withstand direct
manipulations from him. He didn’t have any materials on him, which meant
that he couldn’t immediately make tools to ease the walking corpses. He
couldn’t even muddle and assemble bits and pieces. The soaring green
flames in the East Courtyard gradually grew dimmer. Suddenly, Wei WuXian
found a solution.

Why would he need to come outside and find a dead person with strong
resentment and a cruel personality?

There were not only one, but multiple corpses in the East Hall!

He ran back to the East Courtyard. As Lan SiZhui’s first solution failed, he
found a second one. The disciples pulled out their swords and stuck them into
the ground, making a sword fence. The ghost hand crashed into the fence,
and they spent all their energy compressing their hilts so that it didn’t break
out, paying no attention to who was entering and leaving. Wei WuXian strode
into the East Hall and grabbed Madame Mo and Mo ZiYuan’s corpses, one on
each hand, and spoke in a low voice, “Wake up!”
In a split second, Madame Mo and Mo ZiYuan’s eye whites turned up, and
started making the shrill and powerful shrieks that ferocious ghosts made after
they came back to life.

Amidst the shrieks, another corpse trembled and crawled up, making the
lowest and faintest shriek. It was Madame Mo’s husband.

The shrieks were loud enough and the resentment was strong enough. Wei
WuXian smiled, feeling quite satisfied, “Do you recognize the hand outside?”

He commanded, “Tear it apart.”

The three members of the Mo family whipped out like three clouds of black
wind.

The left arm fractured one of the swords, and was about to break out, when
three cruel corpses without left arms came at it.

Aside from being unable to defy Wei WuXian’s command, the family also
loathed the creature that killed them, and let out their anger on the ghost
hand. The main attacker was undoubtedly Madame Mo. Because female
corpses were often especially fierce after they were modified, her hair was
loose and her eyes were bloodshot. With nails that multiplied in length, foam
gathering at the corners of her mouth, and shrieks that were enough to uplift
the ceiling, she looked extremely insane. Behind her followed Mo ZiYuan, who
cooperated with her and used both his teeth and his hands. His father was at
the end, covering for the gaps between the attacks of the other two corpses.
The struggling boys were stricken dumb with amazement.
They had only seen these battles between multiple fierce corpses in books
and hearsay, and they all gaped as they saw the gore-splattered scene for the
first time, unable to avert their gazes. They all thought that it was… Absolutely
thrilling!

The three corpses and the hand were in the middle of a tough battle, when Mo
ZiYuan abruptly moved out of the way. His abdomen area was attacked by the
hand, causing a few chunks of his intestines to spill out. As Madame Mo saw
this, she screamed incessantly and shielded her son behind herself. Her
attacks were more violent, the strength of her fingers almost comparable to
that of steel and iron weapons. But,Wei WuXian knew that she was gradually
being overpowered.

Even three cruel corpses who recently died couldn’t subdue this single arm!

Wei WuXian was watching the battle attentively. His tongue was slightly
curled, suppressing a sharp whistle inside of his lips, preparing it to be let out.
The whistle would be able to evoke even more hostility in the cruel corpses,
which might turn the tables. Then, however, it would be difficult to ensure that
nobody knew that it was his doing. In the blink of an eye, the hand moved like
lightning, ruthlessly and precisely breaking Madame Mo’s neck.

Watching as the Mo family grew closer to defeat, Wei WuXian prepared to

blow the whistle that he suppressed under his tongue. At the same time, the
echoes of two strums on a stringed instrument came from far away.

The sound seemed to have been played by a human. The timbre was ethereal
and clear, carrying the bleak chills of windswept pines. The creatures
battling in the courtyard all stiffened as they heard the sound.

Instantaneously, the boys from the GusuLan clan started beaming, as if they
were born again. Lan SiZhui wiped the blood off his face and raised his head,
happily exclaiming, “HanGuang-Jun!”
As soon as he heard the two faraway strums of the zither, Wei WuXian turned
around and began to leave.

The sound of another strum came. This time, the pitch was higher, piercing
through the sky with a few degrees of bitterness. The three cruel corpses
backed off and covered one ear with their right hands. However, it was
impossible to block out the Eradication Tone of the GusuLan clan by means
such as this. They had just retreated a few steps, and slight bursting sounds
came from within their skulls.

Because the arm had just endured a tough fight, after hearing the sound of
the strings again, it instantly fell onto the ground. Although the fingers were
still flinching, the arm was unable to move.

After a short moment of silence, the boys couldn’t help but to cheer loudly,
celebrating the joy of surviving the incident. They had struggled through the
exhilarating night, and their clan’s reinforcement had finally came. Even if
they’d be punished because of reasons such as “being discourteous and
making noise is harmful to the clan’s reputation,” they didn’t care.

After waving towards the moon, Lan SiZhui suddenly realized that someone
had disappeared. He tugged Lan JingYi, “Where is he?”

Lan JingYi was absorbed in the act of rejoicing, “Who? Which one?”

Lan SiZhui replied, “Young Master Mo.”

Lan JingYi said, “Hmm? Why are you looking for that lunatic? Who knows
where he ran off to. He’s probably frightened by my threats to hit him.”
“…” Lan SiZhui knew that Lan JingYi had always been careless and
straightforward, not thinking twice about anything or suspecting anyone. He
thought, I’ll wait for HanGuang-Jun to come, and then tell him about
everything.

Mo Village was still asleep, but it was difficult to tell whether it was a real
slumber or a faked one. Although the corpse fight was a mass of blood and
gore, the villagers didn’t wake up during the early morning to watch. After all,
even bystanders needed to choose which events to show up at. One that
involved lots of screaming was definitely not the safest type.

Wei WuXian eliminated all evidence of the sacrificial formation in Mo

XuanYu’s room as fast as he could, and ran out the door.

Unfortunately, the person who came happened to be from the Lan clan, but
even more unfortunately, he happened to be Lan WangJi!

This was one of the people who had fought with him before, so he should
retreat quickly. He was in a hurry to find a mount, as he passed a courtyard
and saw a big millstone inside. A donkey was tied to the handle, chewing on
its mouth. When it saw him run over rashly, it seemed like it was surprised,
and eyed him sideways as if it was a real person. Wei WuXian made eye
contact with him for one second, and was immediately touched by the
minuscule amount of contempt in its eyes.

He tried to grab onto the rope and pull it out, but the donkey complained by
making a few loud noises. Therefore, Wei WuXian had to use both his words
and his strength to deceive it and get it onto the road. As dawn came over the
horizon, they went off onto the main path.

Translator’s Notes:
Seal: This does not mean to seal a piece of paper. It means to “apply a sort of
power to an object/person so that they cannot use one or more of their usual
powers” (“Baidu Baike”).

The bleak chills of windswept pines: Here, the author makes reference to a
poem by Liu ChangQing. The translation of this phrase used
chinesepoems.blogspot.ca as a reference.

HanGuang-Jun: HanGuang-Jun is the seme’s “alternative name” or “hao”. An

alternative name is usually a title given to a person by themselves or others.
In this case, the “-Jun” suffix at the end directly translates to “gentleman” or “a
man of noble character”. Interesting enough, the “-kun” suffix in Japanese
derived from this, although the two are used differently.

Zither: Here, the zither refers to the Chinese zither.

Eradication Tone: The literal meaning is “sounds that can overcome

obstacles”. It is often used while attacking.
Chapter 6 Arrogance—Part One

Important Note: From now on, the GusuLan Clan will be referred to as the
GusuLan Sect. I, the translator, accidentally mistook the definition of a sect as
that of a clan’s. For clarification purposes, a sect is an organization for
cultivation that may or may not be related by blood, while a clan is a
cultivation family related by blood. This means that GusuLan is a sect, with
the Lan clan being the leaders of the sect. This is what Wei WuXian referred
to as he was talking about the uniforms of the disciples who came—only
those part of the clan are allowed to wear cloud patterns, excluding the
common members of the sect. Again, I apologize for the miscommunication
ヽ(；´Д｀)

Only a few days passed, and Wei WuXian realized that he might have made a
wrong choice.

The donkey that he conveniently picked up was too hard to please.

Although it was only a donkey, it would exclusively eat fresh, young grass with
dewdrops still hanging off them. If the tip of the grass had a streak of yellow, it
wouldn’t eat it. Passing a farm, Wei WuXian stole some wheat straws to feed
it, but after chewing them, it spit it out with a ptoo, even louder than that of its
human counterparts. If it didn’t eat high-quality food, it wouldn’t budge, and it’d
lose its temper and kick around. For multiple times, Wei WuXian was almost
kicked by it. Aside from that, it’s brays also sounded extremely horrible to the
ear.

It was useless, no matter as a mount or a pet!

Wei WuXian couldn’t help but to think of his sword. The sword was probably
collected by the leader of a prominent clan and would have hanged on a wall
as a trophy that they could show other people.
After pushing and pulling along for a few blocks, the road reached a vast
farmland of some village. Under the scorching sun, there was a large pagoda
tree and thick, green grass underneath it. Beside the tree, there was an old
well, with a barrel and a dipper on the side, placed there by the farmers for
any passersby to quench their thirst. The donkey ran over there and nothing
could make it leave. Wei WuXian hopped down and slapped its honoured
buttocks, “You’re definitely destined for wealth, even harder to please than
me.”

The donkey spat at him.

While they fooled around aimlessly, a group of people approached from within
the fields.

The people carried handmade bamboo baskets, and wore cotton clothes and
straw sandals, emitting the rustic airs of rural villagers. In the group, there was
a young girl with a round face that could be considered delicate. Possibly
because of walking for too long under the sun, they also wanted to come over
to rest by the shade and have some water. However, seeing that there was a
wild donkey tied to the tree and a lunatic with heavy makeup and dishevelled
hair, they were reluctant to go over.

Wei WuXian had always thought of himself as one who was courteous
towards women, so he moved over, emptying some space, and went to
struggle with the donkey. After realizing that he was harmless, the people
were finally at ease to come over. All of them were drenched in sweat and had
ruddy cheeks; some were fanning themselves and some fetching water. The
girl sat by the well and smiled at Wei WuXian, as if she knew that he
purposely moved away.

One of the people held a compass in his hand. He looked into the distance,
and then lowered his head questioningly, “We’re already at the foot of Dafan
Mountain, so why hasn’t the pointer started moving yet?”
The designs and pointer on the compass looked strange, indicating that it
wasn’t a normal compass. It wasn’t one that showed the North, South, East,
and West, but one that showed the directions malicious creatures, also known
as a “Compass of Evil.” Wei WuXian realized that this was probably a poor
cultivation clan from the countryside. Aside from highbrow, affluent clans,
there were also smaller clans like this, who closed their doors and cultivated
on their own. Wei WuXian thought that they might have left their village to
either find a clan whom they were distant relatives to, or to go night-hunting.

The middle-aged man leading the group called for people to take a drink and
replied, “Your compass might be broken; I’ll get you a new one later. Dafan
Mountain is less than ten miles ahead of us, which means that we cannot rest
for too long. We have struggled through the whole journey, and if we relax
now and fall behind, with other people beating us to it, it wouldn’t have been
worth it.”

As expected, it was a night-hunt. A lot of refined cultivation clans called

travelling to places and exorcising evil beings “hunting.” Because of how these
creatures often appear at night, it was also called “night-hunting.” There were
countless cultivation clans, but only a few were distinguished. Without the
contributions from its ancestors, if an average clan wanted to become famous
and receive respect in the cultivation world, it would have to show its abilities.
Only if a clan captured a fierce monster or a terrorizing being, could it have
then been treated seriously.

This was originally Wei WuXian’s specialty area. However, during the days of
travelling, he destroyed a few graves, but only found small ghosts. He
happened to need a ghost soldier to do evil for him, and decided to go to Rice
Mountain to try his luck. If he found a good one, he’d capture it and put it to
use.

After the group of people finished resting, they prepared to move on. Before
they left, the round-faced girl took a small, partly-ripened apple out of her
basket and handed it to him, “Here you go.”
Wei WuXian extended his hand to receive it, grinning broadly, but the donkey
also opened its mouth and bit at it. Wei WuXian quickly took the apple away.
Seeing that the donkey craved the apple so much, he thought of a good idea.
He gathered a long stick and a fishing thread, hanged the apple on one end,
and dangled it in front of the donkey. The donkey smelled the apple’s
refreshing scent from in front of him and wanted to eat it, chasing the apple
which was always a centimeter away from him. Its speed was faster than the
best horses Wei WuXian had ever seen, leaving only dust behind it.

Without stopping, Wei WuXian arrived at Dafan Shan before dark. Upon
arriving at the foot of the mountain, he finally realized that the “fan” wasn’t the
one he thought it was. It got its name because, looking from far away, the
mountain looked like a kind, chubby buddha. There was a small town below
the mountain, named Buddha’s Feet.

The number of cultivators who gathered here were far more than what he had
expected. Everything was a jumble, with people from different sects and clans
walking down the streets, all in uniforms of different colours, almost blinding to
the eye. For some reason, all of them wore distressed expressions. Nobody
bothered to laugh at him even though they saw his strange appearance.

In the center of the long street, a group of cultivators gathered, talking in

serious tones. It seemed as if their opinions differed greatly. Even from afar,
Wei WuXian could hear them talking. In the beginning, everything was fine,
but they suddenly became agitated.

“… I think that there are no soul-consuming beasts or spirits in the area at all.
It’s clear that none of the Compasses of Evil showed anything.”

“If there isn’t, then how did the seven people lose their souls? They couldn’t
have all attained the same disease, could they? I, for one, haven’t heard of
this disease at all!”
“Even if the Compass of Evil is not showing anything, does it mean that
there’s nothing in the area? It can only point out an approximate direction,
without any specifics, so it shouldn’t be fully trusted. Maybe there’s something
here that can interfere with the pointer’s direction.”

“Do you remember who created the Compass of Evil? I’ve never heard of
anything that can interfere with its pointer’s direction.”

“What do you mean? Are you implying anything with that tone of yours? Of
course, I know that Wei Ying created the Compass of Evil. But, it’s not as if
his creations are flawless. Aren’t we allowed the option of doubt, at least?”

“I never said that you can’t doubt it, much less his creations are flawless, so
why accuse me?”

And so, their argument had turned to another direction. Wei WuXian passed
them on his donkey, giggling and laughing. He didn’t expect that, after so
many years had passed, he was still alive in the cultivators’ conversations.
This was the so-called “much ado about Wei.” If there was ever a poll to find
out whose popularity was the most lasting in the cultivation world, the winner
would be no other than Wei WuXian.

To be honest, the cultivator wasn’t wrong. The Compasses of Evil in use

today was the first version that he made, and were, indeed, not specific
enough. He was in the middle of making improvements when his “den” was
destroyed, so he had to put everyone through the inconvenience of using the
imprecise version one.

Anyways, creatures that ate blood and flesh were usually low in level, such as
walking corpses. Only the more refined high-level monsters or ghosts were
capable of eating and digesting souls. This one ate seven at once—no
wonder so many clans had gathered here. Since the prey was by no means a
trivial matter, it was inevitable for the Compasses of Evil to make mistakes.

Wei WuXian reined in the rope and hopped off the donkey’s back, holding the
apple, which had been ahead of it for the whole journey, in front of its mouth,
“One bite. One bite only… Hmph, are you trying to eat my whole hand with
that bite of yours?”

He ate a few bites from the other side of the apple, and stuffed it back into the
donkey’s mouth, pondering upon how he came down to the point of sharing
an apple with a donkey, when, suddenly, someone bumped into his back. He
turned around to see a girl. Although she bumped into him, she didn’t
acknowledge him at all. Her eyes were dull and she had a smile on her face,
staring into the distance without blinking.

Wei WuXian followed her gaze, and saw the dense mountaintop of Dafan
Mountain.

All of a sudden, the girl started dancing in front of him without saying anything.

The dance was wild, with her arms flinging about savagely. Wei WuXian was
watching the performance with keen pleasure when a woman ran over, lifting
her dress slightly. She embraced the girl and cried, “A-Yan, let’s go back, let’s
go back!”

A-Yan brushed her off with force, her smile still unfaded, creating a terrifying
sort of affection, and continued to dance. The woman had to chase her down
the street, sobbing while running. A street vendor on the side spoke, “How
awful. A-Yan from Blacksmith Zheng’s family has escaped again.”

“It must be horrible for her mom. A-Yan, A-Yan’s husband, and her husband…
All of them were…”
Wei WuXian wandered around, piecing together the strange event that
happened here from picking up on different people’s conversations.

On Dafan Mountain, there was a burial ground. Most of the ancestors of the
townspeople from Buddha’s Feet were buried here and, sometimes,
unidentifiable corpses would also receive a spot and a wooden plaque here. A
few months ago, in a dark and stormy night, the wind and the rain caused a
piece of land on Dafan Mountain to slide and collapse, which happened to be
the burial ground. Many older graves were destroyed, and a few coffins were
exposed to the air and struck by lightning, causing both the corpses and the
coffins to be charred black.

The townspeople of Buddha’s Feet were extremely uneasy. After a few

rounds of prayers, they rebuilt the burial ground again, assuming that
everything would be just fine. However, ever since then, people in the town
started to lose their souls.

The first one was a sluggard. He was a poor wretch, loafing about and doing
no work at all. Because he loved to hike on the mountain and catch birds, he
happened to be stuck in the mountain during the night of the landslide. He
was frightened to death, but, luckily, he was safe. The peculiar thing was that,
after a few days, he suddenly married someone. His wedding was quite large,
and he said that he wanted to be charitable from now on and settle down.

On the night of the wedding, he was completely drunken, having never woken
up ever since he lay on the bed. The bride didn’t receive an answer as she
called him. Only when she pushed him over did she realize that the groom
had dreary eyes and a cold body. Aside from being able to breathe, he was no
different from a dead person. After a few days of lying on the bed, not eating
or drinking anything, he was finally buried. Unfortunately, the bride had
become a widow shortly after she married.
The second one was A-Yan, from Blacksmith Zheng’s family. The young girl
had just received an engagement when her future husband was killed by a
wolf on the second day, while he was hunting in the mountains. After she got
the news, she also became like the sluggard. Luckily, after some time, her
soul-losing disease was cured on its own. However, after this, she went crazy,
cheerfully dancing to other people when she was outside.

The third one was A-Yan’s father, Blacksmith Zheng. Until now, this had
happened to seven people.

Wei WuXian considered the situation, and figured that it was most likely a
soul-consuming spirit, not a soul-consuming beast.

Although only one word was different between the two, they were completely
different beings. A spirit was a ghost, while a beast was a monster. To him, it
was likely that the landslide had destroyed an ancient tomb, and, with
lightning splitting the coffin open, a resting spirit had been let out. If he looked
at the type of coffin and the presence of any seals on it, he could figure out
whether or not this was the case. However, the townsfolk of Buddha’s Feet
had already buried the charred coffins somewhere else and laid the corpses
to rest again, which meant that there wouldn’t be a great deal of evidence left.

To go up the mountain, one had to hike up trail that started in the town. Wei
WuXian sat on his donkey and rode up the hill slowly. After a while, a few
people walked down with ominous expressions on their faces.

Some of them had scars on their faces, and they were talking all at once. With
the darkening sky, they all jumped as they saw a person who looked like a
hanged ghost approaching them. After cursing, they walked around him
quickly. Wei WuXian turned his head around and thought, maybe they were
frustrated because it was a strong prey? He didn’t think too much about it and
slapped the donkey’s buttocks, making it jog faster up the mountain.
Coincidentally, he missed the group’s whining, which happened shortly
afterward.

“I haven’t seen anyone like this!”

“Would the leader of a big clan like that need to fight over a soul-consuming
spirit with us? He probably killed tons of them when he was young.”

“What can we do? He’s a sect leader. No matter which clan you choose to
offend, you shouldn’t offend the Jiang clan, and no matter which person you
choose to offend, you shouldn’t offend Jiang Cheng. Let’s just pack up, leave,
and feel sorry for ourselves!”
Chapter 7 Arrogance—Part Two

If it was darker, then one would need a torch to move freely about in the
mountain’s forest. Wei WuXian walked for a while, but he didn’t meet many
cultivators. He was quite surprised, is it possible that half of the clans who
came were in Buddha’s Feet arguing and talking empty words, while the other
half could only come back defeated, like the group of people who just passed
by?

Suddenly, cries for help came from in front of him.

“Is anyone there?”

“Help us!”

Both male and female voices could be heard, and all sounded panicked,
probably not faked. Cries for help from desolate mountains were usually the
works of evil creatures, to lure ignorant people into traps. Yet, Wei WuXian
was extremely happy.

The more evil the creature was, the better it was for him!

He directed the donkey toward the direction of the voices, but couldn’t find
anything around him. As he looked upward, instead of spirits or monsters, it
was the rural clan that he met by the field earlier on, hanged on the trees by a
huge, golden web.

The middle-aged man was originally patrolling and scouting in the forest with
a few others. However, rather than meeting the prey that they had hoped for,
they stepped into a net trap, probably set up by some wealthy clan, which was
why they were hanging on the trees, complaining and calling for help.

After seeing that someone approached, they immediately brightened up, but
the hope faded as they saw that it was a lunatic who came. Although the
threads of the deity-binding net were thin, the material was fine in quality,
making them difficult to break. No matter human, god, demon, spirit, or
monster, it would take a long while for the intruder to struggle out, since it
could only be broken by a superior magical tool. The lunatic probably didn’t
even know what it was, much less how to get them outside of it.

He was about to call others to come help him, when the crisp sounds of
parting branches and stepping on leaves approached. A boy wearing a light-
colored robe emerged from within the dark forest.

The boy had a vermilion mark in between his eyebrows, his features delicate
yet sharp. He was quite young, around the same age as Lan SiZhui—still in
his adolescence. He carried a bamboo canister of feathered arrows and a
luminous sword on his back, holding a longbow in his hand. The embroidery
on his clothes were extremely delicate, forming a magnificent white peony in
front of his chest. The golden threads glistened against the dark nighttime
shades surrounding him.

Wei WuXian silently exclaimed, “How wealthy!”

This must have been a young master studying in the LanlingJin Sect, since
the sect was the only one with a white peony as the clan pattern, using the
king of all flowers to suggest that they were the king of all cultivators.
The vermilion markimplied the meaning of “opening the doors toward
wisdom and aspiration; illuminating the world with the vermilion light.”

The young master already had an arrow on his bow,and was preparing to
shoot it, when he realized that the deity-binding nets only caught humans.
After an initial moment of disappointment, he quickly became annoyed, “I find
you idiots every single time. There are more than four hundred deity-binding
nets in the mountain, but you guys have already broken ten or so, and I
haven’t even seen the prey yet!”

Wei WuXian thought, again, “How wealthy!”

A single deity-binding net was already expensive, yet he had set up four
hundred all at once. A smaller clan would’ve became bankrupt after buying so
many, but then, of course, this was the LanlingJin Sect. However, wasting
deity-binding webs like this and not caring about what they caught shouldn’t
be considered night-hunting at all. In fact, it was almost as if they were
chasing people away, not allowing others the chance of contributing to the
process. It seemed like that the cultivators who retreated earlier didn’t do it
because the prey was difficult, but rather because this sect was one that
shouldn’t be angered.

After a few days of travelling slowly and listening to the intriguing

conversations at Buddha’s Feet, Wei WuXian gathered a lot of information
about the changes to the cultivation world. As the final winner of the hundred-
year-long cultivational disruption, the LanlingJin Sect was the head of all clans
and sects—its leader was even referred to as the “commander” of all
cultivators.

Even before this, the Jin Clan was arrogant, admirers of extravagant splendor.
After the years of being at the top and while strengthening the sect, it had
trained all of its disciples to do whatever they wanted to. Even a slightly
weaker clan would have to submit to their humiliation, much less a small, rural
clan such as this one. This was why, although the people trapped in the nets
were red with fury, because of the mean words of the boy, they could not talk
back.

The middle-aged man spoke with tolerance, “Please, Young Master, do us a

small favor and let us down.”
The boy was restless with the anxiety of his prey still not arriving, and it was
convenient of him to direct his anger toward the country bumpkins. He
crossed his arms, “You guys should just stay here, in case you mess around
and get in my way again! I’ll let you down after I catch the spirit-consuming
beast, that is, if I still remember you.”

If they really stayed on the trees for the whole night, and happened to bump
into the creature that haunted Dafan Mountain, being unable to move, all they
could do would be to wait for their souls to be sucked dry. The round-faced girl
who gave an apple to Wei WuXian felt scared and started crying. Wei WuXian
was originally cross-legged on the donkey, but as it heard the sob, his long
ears quivered, and it suddenly leaped forward.

Following the leap, came a long bray. If not for how horrible the bray sounded,
its unstoppable vigor could almost pass for a purebred horse. Unprepared for
this, Wei WuXian was thrown off of its back, almost injuring his head as he
fell. The donkey ran head-first toward the boy, as if it believed that it could
knock him off his feet with its head. The boy’s arrow was still poised on the
bow, conveniently drawing the bow toward its direction. Wei WuXian didn’t
want to find a new mount so soon, so he quickly yanked on its reign. The boy
took a look at him, a look of shock to suddenly appear on his face.

After a second, the shock turned into disdain. His mouth twitched, “So, it’s
you.”

The tone was made of twenty percent surprise and eighty percent disgust,
making Wei WuXian blink. The boy spoke again, “Did you lose your marbles
after you were thrown back to your village? How could they let you outside
when you looked as freaky as this?”

Did he really just hear something of such significance?

Might it be, Wei WuXian suddenly realized, that Mo XuanYu’s father isn’t the
head of some small sect, but the famous Jin GuangShan?

Jin GuangShan was the last leader of the LanlingJin Sect, having already
passed away. On the topic of this man, one sentence could not tell the whole
story. He had a fierce wife from a prominent family and, in fact, he was known
for being scared of her. However, even if he was scared, it never stopped him
from going to other women. No matter how fierce Madame Jin was, it was
impossible for her to follow him twenty-four hours a day. Therefore, from
ladies of distinguished statuses, to prostitutes in rural areas, if he could get his
hands on one, he wouldn’t miss the chance. And, although he enjoyed casual
relationships and flirted everywhere, having an uncountable amount of
illegitimate children, it was extremely easy for him to get bored.

After he grew tired a woman, he would forget about her completely, without
any responsibility or whatsoever. Among all of his illegitimate children, there
was only one who proved to be exceptionally talented and ended up being
taken back—the current leader of the LanlingJin Sect, Jin GuangYao.
Moreover, Jin GuangShan didn’t die honorably either. He believed that he was
old but vigorous, and wanted to challenge himself, fooling around with a group
of women. However, unfortunately, he failed and passed away during the act.
This was too humiliating, and so, the LanlingJin Sect told the public that the
old leader died from overworking himself. All of the other clans decided to
keep silent about the matter and pretended that they didn’t know anything.
Anyways, those were the real reasons behind his “fame.”

During the siege in Luanzang Hill, aside from Jiang Cheng, Jin GuangShan
was the second-greatest contributor. And now, Wei WuXian had taken over
the body of his own illegitimate son. He really didn’t know if they were even
with each other.

Seeing that he was spacing out, the boy grew even more annoyed, “Get out of
here! It’s disgusting just looking at you, you damn gay!”
In terms of his generation, it was highly possible of Mo XuanYu to be an elder
to the boy, maybe an uncle. After being humiliated by a junior like this, Wei
WuXian thought that, even if not for his own sake, he needed to return the
humiliation for Mo XuanYu’s body, “What an attitude! I suppose that you didn’t
have a mother to teach you?”

Hearing his words, two raging flames sparked in the boy’s eyes. He
unsheathed the sword on his back and threatened, “What… Did you say?”

The blade of the sword shone a golden light. It was a rare sword of high
quality—most clans probably couldn’t get a small piece of it even if they spent
their whole lives saving for it. Wei WuXian examined it attentively, somehow
thinking that the sword seemed familiar to him. Then again, he had seen his
share of gold, top-notch swords. He didn’t think too much about it and began
to spin a tiny cloth bag that he held in his hand.

It was a makeshift “spirit-locking bag” that he had created a few days ago,
using the scraps and pieces of things. As the boy wielded the sword and
came toward him, he fished a piece of human-shaped paper out of the spirit-
locking bag. He shifted to the side, avoiding the attack, and slapped the paper
onto his opponent’s back.

The boy’s movements were already fast, but Wei WuXian had done a lot of
“tripping someone while slapping a talisman onto their back”, which meant
that he was faster. The boy suddenly felt his torso become numb, his back
weakening, and he unwillingly collapsed onto the ground, with his sword also
falling to the side with a clunk. He couldn’t get up no matter how hard he tried,
as if a mountain was on top of him. On his back, there was a ghost who had
died from gluttony, crushing him to the point that he couldn’t even breathe.
Although the ghost was weak, it was completely capable of dealing with brats
like this one. Wei WuXian picked up his sword, weighed it in his hands, and
swung toward the direction of the deity-binding net, splitting it in half.

The family fell to the ground in an awkward way, but they sprinted off without
saying anything. The round-faced girl seemed as if she wanted to thank him,
but she was pulled away by an elder, who was scared that Young Master Jin
would hate them even more. The boy on the ground was fuming, “You damn
gay! Good for you, taking this sort of wrong path because you didn’t have
enough spiritual powers to do anything! Watch out for your life! Do you know
who came today? Today, I…”

Although the cultivation method that he used in the past was often criticized
and, in the long term, it harmed the cultivator’s health, it could be mastered
quickly. It was also especially attractive because there were no limitations as
to the cultivator’s spiritual powers or talent, making it so that there were
always people who secretly practiced it to find a shortcut. The boy presumed
that, after being chased from the LanlingJin Sect, Mo XuanYu had chosen the
dishonorable path, which was a reasonable conclusion to draw, saving Wei
WuXian from a lot of unnecessary trouble.

The boy pushed on the ground, but couldn’t get up even after a few tries. His
face was scarlet and he gritted his teeth, “If you don’t stop, I’m gonna tell my
uncle, and you’re gonna wait for your death!”

Wei WuXian wondered, “Why is it your uncle, not your dad? Who’s your uncle,
again?”

A voice suddenly came from behind him, a mixture of being bitter and cold.

“I am his uncle. Do you have any last words?”

Hearing the voice, all of the blood from Wei WuXian’s body traveled to his
head, and drained away a moment later. The good thing was that his face was
already a pile of white, so a shade whiter wouldn’t make too much of a
difference.
A violet-clothed youth approached in confident steps, his jianxiu robe flowing
smoothly and his hand pressing on the hilt of his sword. A silver bell hung by
his waist, although it made no sound as he walked.

The young man had thin brows and almond eyes. His features were
handsome in a sharp way, and his eyes held a composed vigor, with a slight
intention of attack, appearing to be two bolts of lightning as he stared. He
stood ten steps away from Wei WuXian, his expression resembling a honed
arrow on the bow, ready to be released at any moment. Even his posture
emitted an air of arrogance and overconfidence.

He frowned, “Jin Ling, why did you linger for so long? Do you really need me
to come and pick you up? Look at what a terrible situation you’re in right now,
and get up!”

After the initial numbing of his head, Wei WuXian quickly realized what was
going on. He curled a finger inside his sleeve and made the piece of paper
retreat. Jin Ling felt his back lighten and immediately rolled up, grabbing his
sword in the process. He shifted near Jiang Cheng and pointed at Wei
WuXian accusingly, “I’m gonna break your legs!”

With the pair of uncle and nephew standing beside each other, it was clear
that they shared a close resemblance, probably able to pass for brothers.
Jiang Cheng moved his finger, and the paper doll swiftly flew out of Wei
WuXian’s hand and into his own. After taking one look at it, hostility came over
his face. He pressured his fingers, and the paper was ignited, burning to dust
with the screams of dark spirits.

Jiang Cheng spoke grimly, “Break his legs? Haven’t I told you? If you see this
sort of evil and crooked practice, kill the cultivator and feed him to your dogs!”

Wei WuXian couldn’t even attempt to grab his donkey, backing away at rapid
speed. He thought that, after so many years, no matter how much hatred
Jiang Cheng had held for him, it would have disappeared long ago. He didn’t
expect that, not only did it not disappear, it became richer, as if it was a jar of
aged alcohol. At the present time, his hatred had grown to affect even people
who cultivated like him!

With someone backing him up, Jin Ling’s attacks became more aggressive.
Wei WuXian slid two fingers into the spirit-locking bag, about to take
something out, when suddenly, the blue glare of a sword slashed out like
lightning. It collided with Jin Ling’s sword, breaking the powerful sword’s
golden rays in an instant.

It wasn’t because of the quality of the swords, but rather the great disparity in
the strengths of the persons using the swords. Wei WuXian had originally
calculated the timing, but his movements were suddenly interrupted by the
sword’s glare, causing him to trip. He fell toward the ground, right on top of a
pair of snow-white boots. After pausing for a moment, he slowly lifted his
head.

What first came into his sight was a long, slender blade, crystalline and
translucent, as if it was made of ice.

In the cultivation world, this sword was one of the most famous ones. Wei
WuXian had experienced its powers countless times, including both battles
fought beside it and against it. The hilt of the sword was forged from pure
silver that had been refined with secret techniques. The blade of the sword
was extremely thin, almost transparent, sending forth the cold breaths of ice
and snow. However, at the same time, it could cut through iron like cutting
through mud. This was why, although the sword looked light, as if it could fly
away any instant, it was actually quite heavy, unable to be wielded by the
average person.

Its name was “Bichen.”

The blade turned, and the clank of the sword being inserted back inside the
scabbard sounded from above Wei WuXian. At the same time, Jiang Cheng’s
voice came from afar, “And I was wondering who it was. So, it is you, Second
Young Master Lan.”

The pair of white boots passed around Wei WuXian and calmly walked three
steps forward. Wei WuXian raised his head and got up. As he walked past the
former, slightly brushing their shoulders, he made eye contact with him for a
short moment, pretending that it was unintentional.

He had an aura of smooth moonlight. The seven-stringed zither that he

carried on his back was narrower than most. Its body was black, made using
wood of soft color.

The man wore a forehead ribbon with cloud patterns. His skin was fair,
features both refined and elegant, as if he was a piece of polished jade. The
color of his eyes was especially light, like they were made of colored glass,
causing his gaze to be overly distant. His expression held the traces of frost
and snow, stern to the degree of being stiff, unwavering even as he saw Wei
WuXian’s ridiculous face.

There wasn’t a single spec of dust or wrinkled spot on him, from his head to
his feet. It was impossible to find any fault with his appearance. Even so, two
capitalized words jumped into Wei WuXian’s mind.

Mourning clothes!

Mourning clothes, indeed. Although all of the clans in the cultivation world
used extravagant words to describe the GusuLan Sect’s uniform as the best
looking uniform, and Lan WangJi as a an incomparable beauty who only
appeared once in a blue moon, nothing could help his bitter facial expression,
as if his wife had passed away.
In an unlucky year, enemies would often find their paths to cross; good news
always traveled alone, but one disaster always followed the next… Thus, the
situation right now.

Lan WangJi was silent, staring straight ahead, standing motionlessly in front
of Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng was already exceptionally handsome, but as
they stood face to face with each other, he still seemed a few degrees inferior.
He raised one brow and spoke, “HanGuang-Jun, you sure live up to your
reputation of ‘being wherever the chaos is’. So, you had time to come to this
remote area today?”

Powerful cultivators from prominent clans usually didn’t care to pay attention
to lower level preys. However, Lan WangJi was an exception. He never cared
for the prey of a night-hunt, and wouldn’t refuse to go just because the
creature was not threatening enough to increase his fame. If anyone wanted
help, he would be there. He had been like this ever since he was young.
“Being wherever the chaos is” was the comment that the public gave him for
his night-hunts and, also, praise for his moral character. Right now, Jiang
Cheng really didn’t seem too polite as he said the words in such a tone. Even
the juniors who came following Lan WangJi didn’t seem comfortable hearing
it.

Lan JingYi spoke straightforwardly, “Isn’t Sect Leader Jiang here as well?”

Jiang Cheng replied grimly, “Tsk, do you really think that you should butt in
when your seniors are conversing? The GusuLan Sect has always been
known for its respectful conduct. Is this really how it teaches its disciples?”

Lan WangJi seemed as if he didn’t want to engage in conversation, throwing

Lan SiZhui a look. The latter understood and told the juniors to speak among
themselves. Afterward, he spoke toward Jin Ling, “Young Master Jin, night-
hunts have always been fair competitions amongst the different clans and
sects. However, to set up nets all over Dafan Mountain is clearly hindering the
cultivators, causing them to fall into the traps. Is this or is this not against the
rules of night-hunting?”
Jin Ling’s grim expression was exactly the same as his uncle’s, “What can I
do? It was their own fault for stepping into the traps. I’ll solve everything after I
finish capturing the prey.”

Lan WangJi frowned. Jin Ling was about to speak again, but he suddenly
realized that, shockingly, he could neither open his mouth nor make any
sounds. Seeing that Jin Ling’s upper and lower lips became inseparable, as if
they were glued together, anger appeared on Jiang Cheng’s face. The sloppy
manners that he upheld before this were all gotten rid of, “You, with the Lan
surname! What do you mean by this? It’s not your turn to discipline Jin Ling
yet, so release the spell, now!”

The silence spell was used by the Lan Sect to reprimand its disciples. Wei
WuXian had suffered a ton from this little trick. Although it wasn’t anything too
complicated or obscure, only people of the Lan Clan could release the spell. If
one wanted to forcibly speak, it would result in either their lips being ripped
bloody or a hoarse throat for a couple of days. The only solution was to stay
silent and reflect upon the wrongdoings, until the time limit of the punishment
was over. Lan SiZhui spoke, “Sect Leader Jiang, there is no need for anger.
As long as he does not break the spell forcefully, it would release on its own,
after thirty minutes.”

Before Jiang Cheng opened his mouth to speak, a purple-clothed man in the
Jiang Sect’s uniform ran toward them from within the forest. He shouted, “Sect
Leader!” However, after seeing Lan WangJi’s presence, he hesitated. Jiang
Cheng spoke satirically, “Talk. Is there more bad news?”

The man spoke in a low voice, “Not long ago, a blue sword flew over and
destroyed the deity-binding nets that you had set up.”

Jiang Cheng glanced at Lan WangJi harshly, his displease plastered all over
his face, “How many were broken?”
The man replied carefully, “… All of them…”

That’s more than four hundred!

Jiang Cheng seethed with anger.

He didn’t expect the journey to be this unlucky. Originally, he came to help Jin
Ling out. Jin Ling would be turning fifteen this year, the age of which he
should already be making his debut and starting to compete with the juniors of
other clans. Jiang Cheng considered the decision carefully before choosing
Dafan Mountain as the location of the hunt. He also set up nets everywhere
and threatened the cultivators of other clans, showing them the consequences
so that they would retreat, in order to let Jin Ling take the top prize without
anyone fighting against him.

Although four hundred deity-binding nets were a whopping price, it wasn’t too
much for the YunmengJiang Sect. Nonetheless, losing the nets were a small
matter, but losing face was not. With Lan WangJi’s actions, Jiang Cheng felt a
whirlpool of anger at the bottom of his heart, rising higher by every second. He
narrowed his eyes, his left hand casually stroking the ring on his right hand’s
index finger.

This was a dangerous sign.

Everyone knew that the ring was a menacing, strong magical weapon.
Whenever Clan Leader Jiang started touching it, it meant that he had the
intent to kill.
Chapter 8 Arrogance—Part Three

However, after stroking it for a while, Jiang Cheng compelled himself to

restrain his hostility.

Although he was displeased, as the leader of a sect, he needed to take more

things into consideration, which meant that he couldn’t be as impulsive as Jin
Ling. After the fall of the QingheNie Sect, among the Three Great Sects, the
LanlingJin Sect and the GusuLan Sect were quite close due to the personal
relationship between the two leaders. By leading the YunmengJiang Sect
alone, he was already in an isolated situation among the three. HanGuang-
Jun, or Lan WangJi, was quite a prestigious cultivator, while his elder brother
ZeWu-Jun, or Lan XiChen, was the leader of the GusuLan Sect. The two
brothers had always been on good terms with each other. It was best to not
openly dispute with Lan WangJi.

Also, Jiang Cheng’s sword, “Sandu,” had never made actual contact with Lan
WangJi’s sword, “Bichen,” and it was not yet decidable whose hands would
the deer die on. Although he owned the powerful ring, “Zidian,” a family
heirloom of his, Lan WangJi’s zither, “Wangji“, was also known for its abilities.
The thing that Jiang Cheng hated the most was to be disadvantageous during
a fight. Without complete confidence in his success, he would not consider
fighting with Lan WangJi.

Jiang Cheng slowly took away his left hand, ceasing to stroke his ring. It
seemed as if Lan WangJi was determined to take part in this matter, so it
wouldn’t help if he continued to play the antagonist. Jiang Cheng made the
decision to, for the time being, owe him a favour, and turned around to see Jin
Ling still covering his mouth angrily, “HanGuang-Jun wants to punish you, so
just let him do it for this one time. It’s not easy for him, either, to discipline
juniors from other clans.”

His tone was sarcastic, but it wasn’t clear who he was mocking. Lan WangJi
never fought to win his way with words, and looked as if he didn’t hear
anything. Jiang Cheng turned again, his words covered with thorns, “Why are
you still standing there? Waiting for the prey to come and throw itself onto
your sword? If, today, you don’t catch the creature hunting Dafan Mountain,
don’t come to me ever again!”

Jin Ling threw Wei WuXian a tough look, but was too scared to look at Lan
WangJi, the person who had silenced him. He put his sword back into its
scabbard, saluted the two seniors, and retreated with the bow in his hand. Lan
SiZhui spoke, “Sect Leader Jiang, the GusuLan Sect will return the exact
number of spirit-binding nets that had been destroyed.”

Jiang Cheng sneered, “No need.” He chose the opposite direction and walked
down calmly. The man who had come from the forest followed behind him,
pulling a long face because he knew that it’d be impossible to escape a
lecture when he returned.

After their figures disappeared, Lan JingYi spoke, “How could the Sect Leader
Jiang act like this?” Only afterward, did he remember the Lan Clan’s rule of
not talking behind others’ backs. He looked meekly at HanGuang-Jun and
shut his mouth. Lan SiZhui smiled softly toward Wei WuXian, “Young Master
Mo, we meet again.”

As Wei WuXian pulled the corners of his mouth, Lan WangJi spoke again, “Do
your tasks.” The command was simplistic and clear, without any fancy
vocabulary for decoration.

The juniors finally remembered the reason behind why they came to Dafan
Mountain. They gathered their thoughts and respectfully waited for further
instructions. After a moment, Lan WangJi spoke again, “Do what you can.
Don’t force anything.”

The voice was deep and alluring. If one was too near, the tip of their heart
would tremble. The juniors replied mannerly, afraid to linger for too long, and
walked into the depths of the forest. Wei WuXian thought that, undeniably,
Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan were extremely different from each other. Even
their advice for juniors were the complete opposite. While thinking, he
suddenly saw Lan WangJi give an almost unnoticeable nod to him. He was
quite surprised.

Ever since a young age, Lan WangJi had been so prim and proper that it was
painful to watch. He had always been solemn and stiff, as if he had never
been lively before. He couldn’t let a single grain of sand appear in his eyes,
which was why he had never approved of Wei WuXian cultivating the dark
path. Lan SiZhui had probably informed Lan WangJi of his suspicious
behaviour in Mo Village already. Even so, he had nodded in
acknowledgement, probably thanking him for helping out the juniors from the
Lan Sect. Without thinking, Wei WuXian immediately returned a salute. When
he looked up again, Lan WangJi had already disappeared.

After pausing for a second, he turned around to travel down the mountain.

No matter what prey haunted Dafan Mountain, he couldn’t take it. Wei WuXian
could fight for it against anyone, except for Jin Ling.

Why did it turn out to be Jin Ling?

With so many disciples in the Jin Sect, he really didn’t expect that the person
he met happened to be Jin Ling. If he knew, he definitely wouldn’t mock Jin
Ling for “having no mother to teach him.” If someone else had said the same
words to Jin Ling, he would teach them about what it means to bring
misfortune upon oneself with careless talk. Yet, the person who had said so
turned out to be himself.

After standing still for a moment, Wei WuXian raised his hand and gave
himself a slap on the face.
The slap was both loud and hard, causing his right cheek to sting. Suddenly,
shuffling sounds came from a thicket on the side, and Wei WuXian saw a
donkey emerge from within. As he dropped his hand, the donkey actually
approached on its own, unlike other times. Wei WuXian pulled on its long ears
and forced a smile, “You wanted to save the damsel in distress, but asked me
to be the hero to the rescue.”

The donkey whined, just as a wave of cultivators approached from the bottom
of the hill. After the four-hundred-or-so spirit-binding nets were destroyed by
Lan WangJi’s sword, the hesitant cultivators in Buddha’s Feet all rushed up
again. Everyone here was probably Jin Ling’s opponent. Wei WuXian
considered for a moment, about whether or not to make them retreat again
with force. But, after thinking about it, he ended up silently walking out of the
way, letting them pass.

The disciples from different sects, wearing differently colored uniforms,

complained as they walked, “Both the Jin Sect and the Jiang Sect spoil Young
Master Jin too much. He’s still so young, but he’s already this arrogant and
rude. If they let him have the LanlingJin Sect, who knows what chaos would
happen? I don’t think we’d even survive.”

Wei WuXian slowed his pace.

A soft-hearted female cultivator sighed, “How can they not spoil him? He lost
both his parents at such a young age.”

“Shimei, that’s not how it works. So what, if both his parents died? There are
tons who lost both of their parents. If everyone acted like him, then what
would happen?”

“I’m surprised that Wei WuXian was cruel enough to harm her. Jin Ling’s
mother was Jiang Cheng’s elder sister from birth—the shijie who brought him
up.”
“It really was too bad for Jiang YanLi, bringing up a wolf that bites the owner’s
hand. Jin ZiXuan had it even worse. Just because he had something to do
with Wei WuXian, he ended up like that.”

“Why does Wei WuXian have something to do with everyone…”

“Indeed. Have you heard him being close with anyone other than the mad
dogs that he raised? His enemies were everywhere, and he did wrong to
everyone. Even with HanGuang-Jun, they were like fire and water, hating
each other.”

“Speaking of it, today, if it wasn’t for HanGuang-Jun…”

After walking for a while, the gurgling sounds of a running stream came into
Wei WuXian’s ears.

He didn’t hear this when he came up. Wei WuXian finally realized that he
walked the wrong path down the mountain, and onto another one that forked
off.

Holding the reign of the donkey, he stood beside the running water. The moon
could be seen high in the sky. With no branches or leaves on the banks of the
stream, fragments of white reflected over the surface. In the reflection, Wei
WuXian saw a face, ever-changing from the flow of the water.

He slammed his palm into the water, dissolving the ridiculous features. He
lifted his dripping wet palms and wiped away the powder on his face.
A handsome, graceful youth appeared in the reflections of the water. He
looked as pure as if he had been cleansed by moonlight, with smooth brows,
bright eyes, and lips curving slightly upward. Yet, as he lowered his head to
stare at himself, the drops of water hanging from his lashes rolled off, as if
they were drops of tears.

It was a young and unfamiliar face, not the YiLing Patriarch who had
overturned the world and killed thousands—Wei WuXian.

After taking a few more looks at this face, Wei WuXian wiped his face again
and rubbed his eyes. He sat beside the stream with a thud.

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t withstand the words of attack. After all, back when
he made the decision, he fully understood the situations that he had to face.
Ever since then, he had reminded himself of the YunmengJiang Sect’s motto
—do it even if it was impossible.

However, although he thought that his heart was like a stone, in the end, he
was still human, not some emotionless grass or plant.

The donkey seemed as if it knew that he wasn’t in a great mood, and for once,
it wasn’t being loud out of impatience. A moment of silence passed, and it
turned around to leave. Wei WuXian sat by the stream, not responding at all.
It turned around to look, throwing its hooves onto the ground, but Wei WuXian
still paid no attention to it. The donkey had to come back sulkily, biting and
tugging on the corner of Wei WuXian’s collar.

He could choose to go, and he could choose to not go. Seeing that the
donkey had went as far as to use his mouth, Wei WuXian decided to follow
him. The donkey took him to a few trees and circled around an area of grass.
In the grass, there lay a qiankun bag, with a ragged golden net hanging
above it. It probably fell off as an unlucky cultivator struggled their way out.
Wei WuXian picked up the bag and opened it. There were quite a few items in
it, such as gourds of medicinal liquor, talismans, miniature demon-reflecting
mirrors, and so on.

He fished around for some time and happened to pull out a talisman.
Immediately, a ball of fire appeared in his hand.

The burning item was an gloom-burning talisman, which, like its name, used
dark energy as fuel. It would burn automatically if it made contact with dark
energy. The more energy there was, the stronger the flame was. It lit up as
soon as it was taken out, meaning that there was a spirit not far away from
Wei WuXian.

Seeing the light of the fire, Wei WuXian held it to detect the spirit’s direction,
watching attentively. When he turned to the east, the fire weakened; when he
turned to the west, the fire suddenly intensified. He walked a few steps toward
the direction, and saw a white, stooping figure appear under a tree.

The talisman had finished burning, and the ashes fell from his fingertips. An
old man was sitting with his back to him, speaking in faint murmurs.

Wei WuXian slowly approached. The words that the old man murmured
became clear.

“It hurts, it hurts.”

Wei WuXian asked, “Where does it hurt?”

The old man answered, “Head. My head.”

Wei WuXian replied, “Let me take a look at it.”

He walked a few steps to the side of the old man, and saw a bloodied, large
hole on his forehead. This was a ghost, probably killed with a weapon which
was smashed onto his head. He was dressed in a burial robe made with fine
material and craftsmanship, meaning that he had already been en-coffined
and buried properly. This wasn’t the soul that a living human had lost.

However, ghosts like this shouldn’t have appeared on Dafan Mountain.

Wei WuXian did not find an explanation to this implausible scenario. Feeling
quite worried, he jumped onto the donkey’s back, slapped it with a shout, and
rode toward the direction of where Jin Ling came up the mountain.

Around the area of the ancient tombs, there were a lot of cultivators who
wandered around, in hope of a hare crashing into the tree trunk. Somebody
dared to hold a spirit-attraction flag, but only attracted a bunch of dark spirits
who wept despairingly. Wei WuXian pulled on the reign, scanned around, and
asked in a loud, clear voice, “Excuse me and sorry for the interruption, but
where did the young masters from the Jin Clan and the Lan Clan go?”

Sure enough, after washing his face, people actually acknowledged him. One
cultivator answered, “They left here, for Goddess Temple.”

Wei WuXian spoke, “Goddess Temple?”

The rural clan from back then had sneaked up the mountain again and joined
the group of night-hunters, after hearing that all of the deity-binding nets were
destroyed. The middle-aged man recognized his clothing and the grimacing
donkey, realizing that he was lunatic who’d saved them earlier. He felt quite
awkward, and pretended that nothing had happened. Nonetheless, the round-
faced girl showed him the path, “Over there. It’s a divine temple in a cave on
the mountain.”
Wei WuXian inquired again, “Which deity is the temple built for?”

The round-faced girl spoke, “I, I think it’s a natural stone statue of a goddess.”

Wei WuXian nodded, “Thank you.”

After the conversation, he immediately ran toward the direction of Goddess

Temple.

The sluggard’s marriage, lightning that destroyed coffins, the fiance eaten by
wolves, the father and daughter losing their souls, the extravagant burial
clothes… It was as if a string was being pulled through all of the beads, tying
everything into one perfect strand. No wonder the compasses of evil didn’t
pick up anything, and the spirit-attraction flags didn’t work either. Everyone
had underestimated the creature in Dafan Mountain.

It wasn’t at all what they thought it was!

Chapter 9 Arrogance—Part Four

On the other hand, Lan SiZhui and the other disciples did not find anything in
the area of the ancient tombs, and had moved on to search for clues in
Goddess Temple.

In Dafan Mountain, aside from the tombs of the Buddha’s Feet ancestors,
there was also the Goddess Temple. The being of worship was neither
Buddha nor GuanYin, but the statue of a “dancing goddess.”

A few hundred years ago, a hunter from Buddha’s Feet ventured into the
mountains, and found an extraordinary stone in a cave. It was around three
meters in height, formed naturally, and appeared strangely like a human, with
four limbs making a dancing pose. The more peculiar thing was that human
features could vaguely be seen on the statue, appearing to be that of a
smiling lady.

The townspeople of Buddha’s Feet were all astonished, and thought that it
was a magical stone formed by gathering the energy of Heaven and Earth,
making up a series of legends about it. Some told the story of
an immortal falling in love with the Goddess of the Nine Heavens, and
carved a stone statue from the goddess’s appearance to convey the
hardships of being lovesick. After discovering this, the goddess was furious,
so the unfinished statue had to be left alone. Others told the story of the Jade
Emperor and his beloved daughter who died young. The emperor’s longing
for his daughter had, supposedly, turned into this statue.

Anyhow, there were all sorts of myths, able to make anyone gawk. In the end,
the townspeople themselves also started to believe in these legends which
came out of their own mouths. Hence, someone turned the stone cave into a
temple, and the stone platform into a holy seat. The statue was named
“Dancing Goddess,” and there were worshippers all year round.
The inside of the cave was spacious, similar to the size of an erjin temple,
with the statue of the goddess set in the center. At first sight, it did indeed look
like a human—the maiden’s waist could even be considered lithe and
graceful. However, after taking a closer look at it, it would seem rougher. Then
again, a naturally-formed statue being so similar to an actual human was
enough to make most people gasp in awe.

Lan JingYi lifted and lowered the compass of evil, but its pointer still didn’t
move. A thick layer of incense ashes covered the table for offerings, and
disordered candles lay on there as well. A sickly sweet scent came from the
plates for holding fruits. Most of the people from the GusuLan Sect had some
degree of minor mysophobia. He fanned at the air in front of his nose and
spoke, “The locals said that it is quite effective to pray at Goddess Temple,
but how can it be this ruined? They should at least come and clean once in
awhile.”

Lan SiZhui spoke, “There has already been seven people who lost their souls.
Everyone is saying that lightning has let out a fierce creature from the ancient
graves of Buddha’s Feet, so would anybody dare to come up the mountain?
There is no attendance at the temple and so, naturally, there is nobody to
clean the place.”

A disdainful voice came from outside of the cave, “It’s only a stupid rock, given
the title of a goddess by who-knows who, and people dare to put it here,
accepting incense and worship!”

Jin Ling came inside, with his hands crossed behind his back. The time limit
for the silence spell was not long, so his mouth could already open. However,
nothing nice came out of that mouth of his, as he looked at the goddess statue
and humphed, “These rural villagers don’t work hard when they face
difficulties, but instead pray to the Buddha and other things every day. There
are thousands and millions of people in the world, but gods and Buddhas are
already hands-full with their own matters, so who would care about them? Let
alone a powerless goddess without status, like this one. If it’s really that
effective, then I’m gonna pray for the soul-consuming creature in Dafan
Mountain to appear in front of me right now. Can the statue do it?”
A few cultivators from smaller clans came in behind him, and everyone
laughed right after hearing him, agreeing with his words. The originally quiet
temple became bustling with noise, after the group of people had rushed forth,
and the space also seemed more cramped. Lan SiZhui silently shook his
head, turning around and glancing without any aim. His gaze landed on the
head of the goddess statue; the features of a compassionately smiling face
could vaguely be seen.

Yet, he felt a strange sense of familiarity toward the smile, as if he had seen it
somewhere before this.

Where on Earth had he seen it before?

Lan SiZhui thought that it must be a very important matter, and couldn’t help
but to approach the statue, wanting to examine the goddess’s features
carefully. At the same time, someone bumped into him.

A cultivator who was originally standing behind him had fallen down without
any noise. The others were alert with surprise. Jin Ling spoke in a vigilant
tone, “What happened to him?”

Lan SiZhui held his sword and bent down to examine it. There was nothing
wrong with the cultivator’s breathing, like he had just suddenly fallen asleep.
Yet, no matter how hard he was pushed or called, he would not wake up. Lan
SiZhui stood up, “He seems as if…”

Before he finished his sentence, the dark cave abruptly lit up. The cave was
suddenly covered in a red light, as if a waterfall of blood was rolling off its
walls. The candles on the platform for offerings and in the corners of the cave
had ignited on their own.
With a few shings, everyone in the cave had either drawn their swords or
taken out their talismans. At the same time, a person suddenly burst in from
outside the temple, holding a gourd of medicinal alcohol. He threw it toward
the stone statue, and raging flames sprouted from it, illuminating the stone
cave so that it could even pass for daytime.

Wei WuXian used up all of the items he had found in the qiankun bag. He
threw it away and shouted, “Everyone, go back outside! Be cautious of the
soul-consuming goddess on the inside!”

Someone yelled in surprise, “The goddess’s pose had changed!”

Before, the statute clearly had one foot lifted and both of its arms raised
upward, of which one was pointing directly at the sky, its form graceful.
However, amid the crimson and yellow flames, it had lowered both its arms
and its foot. There was no doubt—it definitely wasn’t a mistake of the eye!

The next moment, the statue lifted one foot again, and stepped out of the fire!

Wei WuXian shouted, “Run, run, run! Stop slashing around! It won’t work!”

Most of the cultivators ignored him. The soul-consuming monster that they
had tried so hard to find had finally appeared, so why would they miss out on
the chance? However, even with so many swords chopping and stabbing, and
so many talismans and magical tools being thrown at it, the statue’s advance
didn’t stop at all. It was around three meters tall, resembling a titan as it
moved, giving off a strong sense of oppression. It picked up two cultivators
and lifted them in front of its face. The stone mouth seemed like it opened and
closed, and the swords in the cultivators’ hands dropped to the ground with
two clanks. Their heads drooped. Their souls were sucked away.

With no attack methods working properly, the others were finally willing to
listen to Wei WuXian’s words. Everyone gushed outside, scattering in all
directions as fast as they could. With so many people and faces, the more
anxious Wei WuXian became, the longer it took to find Jin Ling. Wei WuXian
rode on the donkey and ran into a bamboo forest, encountering the juniors
from the Lan Clan as he turned around.

Wei WuXian called for them, “Children!”

Lan SiZhui replied, “Who are your children? Do you know which sect we are
from? Did you really think that you would be considered a senior just because
you washed your face?”

Wei WuXian spoke, “Okay, okay, okay, gege-s. Send a signal and get your
clan’s… HanGuang-Jun up here!”

The juniors nodded a few times, and ran around while searching for signals.
Lan SiZhui spoke, “The signal firelights… were all used up during the night at
Mo Village.”

Wei WuXian was shocked, “You guys didn’t restock afterwards?”

The signal firelights were usually only needed once in over eight hundred
years. Lan SiZhui replied bashfully, “We forgot.”

Wei WuXian tried to scare them, “Is this a matter that you should forget
about? If HanGuang-Jun knew about this, he’s going to make you sorry.”

Lan JingYi’s face was pale with terror, “It’s over. This time, we are gonna be
punished to death by HanGuang-Jun…”

Wei WuXian, “Indeed, he should punish you! Without punishment, you

wouldn’t remember the next time.”
Lan SiZhui, “Young Master Mo, Young Master Mo! How did you know that it
was not a spirit-consuming spirit or beast, but the goddess statue instead?”

Wei WuXian searched for Jin Ling as he ran, “How did I know? I saw.”

Lan JingYi also caught up. They each ran on one side of him, “What did you
see? We also saw lots of things.”

“You saw, so what happens next? What things were in the area of the ancient
tombs?”

“What else could there be? There were only dead souls.”

“Correct, there were dead souls. This is why it can’t be a soul-consuming spirit
or beast. It’s simple—if it was either of these two, with so many dead spirits in
the area, would it have chosen to not eat them? No, it wouldn’t have.”

This time, there were more than one person who asked, “Why?”

“Just what can I say about your GusuLan Sect…” Wei WuXian could not
tolerate it any more, “Why can’t you teach less annoying, lengthy nonsense
like cultivational etiquette, family trees, and history which requires
memorization, and teach more practical things? How is this hard to
understand? Dead souls are a lot easier to absorb than living souls. The
physical body of a living person is like a shield, and if it wants to eat a live
soul, it would have to break the shield. For example…” He looked at the
donkey, which panted while running, rolling its eyes, “For example, if an apple
is put in front of you, and another one is put inside a locked box, which one
would you choose to eat? Of course, it would be the one in front of you. This
creature only eats living souls, and knows of a way to obtain them. It is both
powerful and selective in terms of food.”

Lan JingYi was astonished, “So that’s how it works? It makes a lot of sense!
Wait, so you’re really not a lunatic?”

Lan SiZhui explained as he ran, “We all thought that, because the landslide
and lightning led to the series of events, it must be a soul-consuming spirit.”

Wei WuXian spoke, “Wrong.”

“What is wrong?”

“The order and the correlation is wrong. Let me ask you—for the landslide and
the soul-consuming events, which ones were the first and second, the cause
and effect?”

Lan SiZhui answered without thinking twice, “The landslide was the first, and
the soul-consumption was the second. The first was the cause, and the latter
was the effect.”

Wei WuXian spoke, “Completely wrong. The soul-consumption was first, and
the the landslide was second. The soul-consumption was the cause, and the
landslide was the effect! During the night of the landslide, a storm suddenly
started, and a streak of lightning broke a coffin—remember this. This first
person to lose their soul, the sluggard, was trapped in the mountains for the
whole night, and married a few days later.”

Lan JingYi asked, “Where is it wrong?”

Wei WuXian replied, “It is all wrong! Where would a good-for-nothing and
penniless person obtain the money to form such a grand wedding?”

The boys were rendered speechless. But, it couldn’t have been helped, since
the GusuLan Sect was a sect that did not need to worry about matters of
wealth. Wei WuXian spoke again, “Did you take a look at all of the dead souls
floating in Dafan Mountain? There was an old man who died from a hit to the
head, wearing burial clothes that were made with fine craftsmanship and
fabric. With such extravagant burial clothes, his coffin couldn’t have been
empty, and there must have been a few burial items to protect it. The coffin
that was broken by the lightning was most likely his. Yet, the people who
came to retrieve the corpse did not find any burial items, which meant that
they were definitely taken away by the sluggard, explaining why he suddenly
became rich. The sluggard suddenly decided to marry someone after the night
of the landslide, so something unusual must have happened during the night.
On that evening, there was a harsh storm and he took cover in the mountain.
Where on Dafan Mountain is it possible to take cover from the rain? Goddess
Temple. And, when most people go into a temple, there is one thing that they
would do.”

Lan SiZhui asked, “Pray?”

“That’s right. For example, he would pray for himself to be lucky, to become
wealthy, to have enough money to marry, and so on. The goddess fulfilled his
wish with the lightning that split open the grave, letting him see the treasures
in the coffin. His prayers came true and, as the sacrifice, the goddess came to
him on the evening of his marriage, and took his soul away!”

Lan JingYi, “All of these are just your guesses, right?”

Wei WuXian, “Yes, they are guesses. But, following this train of logic, all of the
things that happened afterward could be explained.”
Lan SiZhui, “How can this explain what happened with the girl, A-Yan?”

Wei WuXian, “Great question. You guys probably asked around before you
came up the mountain. A-Yan had just got engaged during those days. All
recently-engaged girls will definitely have the same wish.”

Lan JingYi was befuddled, “What wish?”

Wei WuXian replied, “None other than something that goes like, ‘I wish my
husband would love me and care for me for his whole life, attracted to only
myself’.”

The boys were at a loss, “Would a wish like this really be able to be granted?”

Wei WuXian held his palms out, “It’s simple. If her husband’s ‘whole life’
immediately ended, wouldn’t it count as ‘loving only one person for his entire
life’?”

Lan JingYi finally understood and shouted excitedly, “Oh, oh! So, so, so, the
reason behind her husband being eaten by wolves the day after her
engagement was that it was highly possible for A-Yan to have been to
Goddess Temple to pray!”

Wei WuXian struck while the iron was still hot, “It was hard to say whether
he was attacked by a wolf or something else. There is another factor that is
unique to A-Yan: why is that, out of all of the victims, only A-Yan’s soul
returned? How is she different from everyone else? The difference is that she
has a relative who also lost his soul. Or, in other words, a relative replaced
her! Blacksmith Zheng is A-Yan’s father, especially one who loved his
daughter. So, when he saw that his daughter lost her soul, and there were no
ways to deal with it, what was the only thing that he could do?”

This time, Lan SiZhui was quick to reply, “He could only entrust his hope to
the Heavens. Therefore, he also went to Goddess Temple to pray, the wish
being ‘I wish my daughter A-Yan’s soul can be found’!”

Wei WuXian spoke with appraise, “This is why only A-Yan’s soul came back,
and also the reason behind Blacksmith Zheng losing his soul. However,
although A-Yan’s soul was given back, it was still slightly fractured. After her
soul returned, she had unconsciously started to imitate the goddess statue’s
dance and even its smile.”

The similarity of the people who lost their souls was that, most likely, they had
all prayed in front of the goddess statue. The prices to pay for their wishes
were their souls.

The goddess statue was originally just an average rock which happened to
look like a person. Having accepted a few hundred years’ worth of worship
without any reason, it had gained some powers. Yet, because it was greedy
and its thoughts ventured off the wrong path, it had wanted to quickly increase
its powers by eating souls. These were souls that it obtained by means of
swapping wishes, and could be considered as the voluntarily sacrificed souls
of the people who prayed. The two sides had a fair deal, one wish for another,
and it seemed to be just and moral. This was why the pointers of the
compasses of evil did not move, why the spirit-attraction flags did not work,
and why the powers of the swords and talismans were all nullified—the
creature in Dafan Mountain wasn’t any sprite, demon, ghost, or monster, but a
goddess! This was an untitled goddess born from the hundreds of years of
incense. Using the items used to deal with evil spirits and beasts to deal with it
would be like using fire to distinguish fire!

Lan JingYi shouted loudly, “Wait! Before this, in the temple, someone’s soul
was also taken away, but we didn’t hear him wish!”
Wei WuXian’s heart suddenly jumped. He stopped his footsteps, “Someone’s
soul was taken away in the temple? Describe to me everything that happened
earlier, without missing a single word.”

Lan SiZhui repeated the scenario both clearly and quickly. When he heard Jin
Ling’s talk of “if it’s really that effective, then I’m gonna pray for the soul-
consuming creature in Dafan Mountain appear in front of me right now. Can
the statue do it?” Wei WuXian spoke, “How is this not wishing? It most
definitely is a wish!”

The others agreed with Jin Ling, so it was accepted that they had all wished
the same thing. At the time, the soul-consuming goddess was right in front of
them, so the wish was granted. Then, it was time to seize the sacrifice!

Suddenly, the donkey halted, and ran toward the opposite direction. Wei
WuXian was, again, swung off unprepared, but grabbed on to the rope no
matter what. However, in the bushes in front of him, there came a noise of
chewing, complete with crunches and slurps. An immense figure was crawling
in the bush, its huge head on the ground and moving using its stomach.
Hearing the noise, it immediately lifted its head. Their eyes met.

In the beginning, the soul-consuming goddess’s features were vague, and

there were only the shapes of eyes, nose, mouth, and ears on its face, but
after it had eaten the souls of a few cultivators all at once, it could already
form clear features. It was the face of a smiling woman, with blood dripping
down the corners of its mouth, munching on an arm that had been torn off.

Everyone, following the donkey, ran in the other direction.

Lan SiZhui was breaking down, “That is not supposed to happen! The YiLing
Patriarch had said before, that high-level ones eat souls, and only low-level
ones eat flesh!”

Wei WuXian couldn’t help but to comment, “Why are you blindly worshipping
him? Even his own inventions were a mess! No rules stay the same in all
situations. You can think of it as an infant—when it lacks teeth, it can only eat
congee and soup, but when it grows up, it would, of course, also want to eat
meat using its teeth. Her powers had just risen greatly, so naturally she’d want
to taste something new!”

The soul-consuming goddess stood up from the ground. Her body was tall.
She used her arms and her legs to dance with uncontrollable excitement,
seeming like she was extremely pleased. Out of the blue, an arrow came with
a whoosh and pierced her forehead, the arrowhead appearing out of the back
of her head.

Hearing the sound of the bow’s release, Wei WuXian’s looked toward its
direction. Jin Ling stood atop a tall hill, not far away, and already had his
second feathered arrow on the bow. He pulled to the maximum, and another
head-penetrating arrow was released, the strength causing the soul-
consuming goddess to stagger a few steps backward.

Lan SiZhui yelled, “Young Master Jin! Send off the signal on you!”

Jin Ling turned a deaf ear to his words, determined to kill the monster. With a
solemn face, he set three arrows onto the bow at once. Although she was
shot in the head twice, the soul-consuming goddess was not angered, and
advanced toward Jin Ling with the same smile plastered on her face. Although
she danced while walking, her speed was terrifyingly fast, decreasing the
distance between them by half in just a few moments. A few cultivators
appeared from the side and fought with her, hindering her strides. Jin Ling
shot each arrow as the goddess took each step, probably intending to use up
all of the feathered arrows first, before fighting in a closer range with the soul-
consuming goddess. His arm was quite steady, and his shots were accurate,
but all magical weapons were useless against it!

Both Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi were at Buddha’s Feet, waiting for any
news, so who knows how long it would take for them to realize that something
was wrong and come up here. To extinguish fire, water was needed.
Therefore, if magical weapons didn’t work, what about dark sorcery?

Wei WuXian unsheathed the sword on Lan SiZhui’s waist and chopped off a
piece of a thin bamboo, swiftly making it into a flute. He lifted it up in front of
his lips and took a deep breath. The shrill timbre of the flute was like an arrow,
slicing through the night sky and shooting into the clouds.

This should have been a last resort for him, but however, with the situation
already like this, it didn’t matter what he summoned. It’d be fine as long as the
dark energy was strong enough and the killing intent was keen enough, so
that it could rip the soul-consuming goddess into pieces!

Lan SiZhui was shocked to the point that he couldn’t even move, while Lan
JingYi covered his ears, “Look at what situation we are in, and you are still
playing the flute? It sounds horrible!”

In the battle, three or four of the cultivators who were fighting with the soul-
consuming goddess had lost their souls. Jin Ling pulled out his sword. He was
already less than two zhang away from the soul-consuming goddess. His
heart thumped like crazy and all of the blood in his body went toward his
head, if I can’t slice off her head with this blow, I will die here—death it is,
then!

At the same time, from within the forests of Dafan Mountain, a tinkling sound
appeared.
Tinkle tinkle, tinkle tinkle. It was sometimes faster, sometimes slower;
sometimes pausing, sometimes continuing. It echoed in the silent woods,
resembling the sound of iron chains colliding and being dragged on the
ground. It came closer, and became louder.

For some reason, the sound gave the people an uneasy sense of threat. Even
the soul-consuming goddess stopped dancing. It raised it arms, blankly
staring into the dark of which the sound came from.

Wei WuXian put away his flute and carefully looked into the direction.

The ominous feeling that he felt became stronger and stronger, but because it
was willing to come due to the summoning, it would at least be something that
listened to him.

Then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped. A figure emerged from within the
darkness.

After having a clear view of the figure and the face, the cultivators’
expressions became twisted.

Even when facing the goddess statue that could suck away their souls at any
minute, the group did not cower or show any fear, but however, their shouting
voices right now were filled with terror that they could not conceal.

“… The ‘Ghost General’, it’s the ‘Ghost General’, it’s Wen Ning!”

The title of the “Ghost General” was as infamous as that of the YiLing
Patriarch’s. Most of the time, the two appeared together.
The word only referred one person—the right-hand man of the YiLing
Patriarch Wei Ying, who had helped with the tyrant’s crimes, stirred up wind
and waves, played the jackal to the tiger, overturned the world with him, and
most of all, was a fierce corpse who should have been turned into ashes a
long time ago—Wen Ning!
Chapter 10 Arrogance—Part Five

Wen Ning’s head was slightly lowered and his arms hung down, as if he was a
marionette waiting for the orders of his master.

His face was pale and delicate, and could be considered handsome in a
melancholy sort of way. However, there were no pupils in his eyes, but only a
flat cloud of white, along with a number of black, cracking lines which climbed
up his face from his neck, so the melancholy turned into a frightening gloom.
The lower hem and sleeves of his robe were ragged and torn, showing a pair
of wrists that were the same ashen shade as his face, with black cuffs and
chains on both his wrists and ankles. The tinkling sound was produced when
he dragged the iron chains on the ground. If he stopped moving, everything
would be silent again.

It wasn’t hard to guess why all of the cultivators were scared out of their wits.
Wei WuXian wasn’t any calmer than any of them either. In fact, the storm in
his chest had already crashed over the top of his head.

It wasn’t that Wen Ning shouldn’t be here, but that Wen Ning shouldn’t be in
this world at all. He was turned into ashes even before the siege at Luanzang
Hill.

Hearing the others call Wen Ning’s name, Jin Ling’s blade, which originally
pointed at the direction of the soul-consuming goddess, couldn’t help but to
turn toward another direction. Seeing that he was distracted, the soul-
consuming goddess gladly extended her arm and picked him up.

As Wei WuXian saw her opened mouth approaching Jin Ling, he didn’t have
time to be surprised. He raised the wooden flute again, hands slightly shaking,
and therefore, the notes that he played also trembled. Aside from this, the
flute was roughly crafted, so the sound produced could be described as
coarse and unpleasant to the ear. With two notes, Wen Ning started to move.
Within the blink of an eye, he had already shifted in front of the soul-
consuming goddess. Wen Ning used the side of his palm and gave a blow.
The soul-consuming goddess’s neck cracked, and although her body didn’t
move, her head was twisted around because of the force. She faced the
direction of which her back originally faced, but kept on smiling. Wen Ning
gave another blow with his hand, and the soul-consuming goddess’s right
hand, which was holding Jin Ling, was cleanly cut off.

She bowed her head to look at the wrist which broke off sharply. Instead of
turning her head toward the correct direction, her entire body turned around,
so that she was facing Wen Ning with her face and her back. Wei WuXian
didn’t dare to relax. He took a deep breath and commanded Wen Ning to fight.
However, not long had passed, and he became even more shocked.

Low-level corpses were unable to think on their own and needed his orders to
lead them. Powerful fierce corpses, on the other hand, were usually delirious
or unconscious. Yet, Wen Ning’s case was different—he was created by Wei
WuXian, which meant that he could easily be called the strongest fierce
corpse in the current world. He was the only one who was capable of thought.
Aside from not fearing injuries, fire, the cold, poison, and whatever living
humans feared, he was the same as a one.

However, at that moment, Wen Ning clearly wasn’t conscious!

He was both shocked and doubtful as a few cries of alarm came threshing
from the crowd. Using both his arms and legs, Wen Ning had secured the
soul-consuming goddess on the ground. He picked up a rock which lay on the
side, taller than the height of humans, and lifted it above the soul-consuming
goddess. He started to slam it onto her with great force. Each strike sounded
as loud as thunder, continuing until the stone body of the soul-consuming
goddess was pounded to pieces!

Amid the white pile of rocks scattered on the ground, a marble-sized sphere
rolled out, radiating a circle of light in the colour of snow. It was the core that
condensed in the soul-consuming goddess after she devoured the souls of
ten-or-so living people. If it was brought back and handled carefully, some
people, who had their souls eaten recently, could be restored back to life.
However, at the moment, nobody made any effort to pick up the sphere. The
blades which were aimed at the soul-consuming goddess all turned around.

One cultivator shouted at the top of his lungs, “Close in on him!”

Some people replied hesitantly, but more people were indecisive, walking
backward slowly. The cultivator shouted again, “Fellow cultivators, we have to
block him so that he doesn’t escape. This is Wen Ning we’re facing!”

These words convinced the crowd. What was a mere soul-consuming monster
compared to the Ghost General? Although the reason as to his appearance
was unknown, it was obvious that killing one thousand soul-consuming spirits
couldn’t even compare to capturing one single Wen Ning. After all, this was
the most obeying mad dog under the YiLing Patriarch, which bit people
without making any noise. If it was captured, they would surely become
famous in the cultivation world and quickly rise to success! Their original goal
from attending the Dafan Mountain night-hunt was to fight for fairies, beasts,
and evil spirits to add to their experiences. With the shouts, it was certain that
some people were interested. Yet, the older cultivators who saw with their
own eyes how wild Wen Ning was when he broke out were still cautious to
make a move. Hence, the person shouted once more, “What are you scared
of? It’s not as if the YiLing Patriarch is here right now.”

After another thought, the words made sense to them. What was there to be
scared of? His master was already in pieces!

With these remarks, the ring of swords which circled around Wen Ning had
suddenly decreased in size. Wen Ning waved his arm, and the black iron
chains swept past heavily, hitting the swords so that the directions of their
blades slanted off to the side. Right afterward, he took a stride forward and
gripped the neck of the person closest to him. With a light pull, he was lifted
off the ground. Seeing the situation, Wei WuXian knew that the flute notes
were too hurried and abrupt, causing him to develop a killing intent. To stifle it,
Wei WuXian calmed his feelings and assuredly played another melody.
The melody had drifted over his mind naturally. It was relaxed and tranquil,
contrasting with the bizarre and ear-piercing one from before. Hearing the
sound, Wen Ning froze, and slowly turned toward the direction of which the
melody came from. Wei WuXian stood in the same spot, staring into his pupil-
less eyes.

After a moment, Wen Ning released his hand, throwing the cultivator on the
ground. He let down his arms and walked toward Wei WuXian at a slow pace.

His head was lowered and he dragged a large amount of iron chains, even
seeming as if he looked dejected. Wei WuXian retreated while playing the
flute, guiding him to follow. Walking like this for a short distance, they moved
into the forest, when suddenly, Wei WuXian caught the chilly scent of
sandalwood.

Immediately after, his back bumped into someone. With an abrupt pain on his
wrist, the flute melody had stopped. Wei WuXian thought, oh no, and turned
around to look. His sight collided with Lan WangJi’s eyes. They were light-
coloured to the point of appearing to be physically cold.

The situation looked unpromising. Lan WangJi had seen him use the flute to
control corpses with his own eyes.

Lan WangJi used one hand to steadily grip Wei WuXian. Wen Ning stood still
at about two zhang away from them, slowly looking around as if he was
searching for the flute melody that had suddenly disappeared. From far into
the forest, the light of flames and sound of human voices were spreading. Wei
WuXian thought quickly and made his decision at once—so what, if Lan
WangJi had seen him do this before? There were tens of thousands of people
who knew how to play the flute, and the number of people who imitated the
YiLing Patriarch’s method of using it to control corpses could form a sect on
their own. He wouldn’t confess no matter what!

He decisively ignored the hand that gripped him and raised his arm to
continue playing. This time, the tempo was faster, as if it was urging or
scolding. His air was not steady and each note cracked at the end, sounding
shrill and harsh. Suddenly, Lan WangJi’s hand tightened, almost causing his
wrist to break. Wei WuXian’s fingers loosened from the pain and the wooden
flute dropped to the ground.

Fortunately, his orders were clear enough. Wen Ning retreated quickly,
disappearing into the dark and gloomy forest without a sound. Wei WuXian
feared that Lan WangJi would chase after Wen Ning, so he backhandedly
grabbed him instead. But, surprisingly, Lan WangJi never even looked at Wen
Ning once, but stared at Wei WuXian the whole time. The two stood face to
face, gripping each other’s arms, and stared.

At the same time, Jiang Cheng arrived.

He maintained his patience and waited for the results in Buddha’s Feet, but
before he finished a single cup of tea, a disciple ran from the mountain hastily
and told him about how powerful and cruel the thing in Dafan Mountain was.
Hearing this, his heart jumped and he rushed up here again. He shouted, “A-
Ling!”

Jin Ling almost had his soul taken away a moment ago, but he was fine now,
and stood on the ground properly, “Uncle!”

Seeing that Jin Ling was safe, Jiang Cheng finally calmed down. Quickly
afterward, he scolded angrily, “Didn’t you bring signal firelights with you? Don’t
you know to use them when you meet something like this? What are you
pretending to be strong for? Scram over here!”

Jin Ling was also angered from not capturing the soul-consuming goddess,
“Weren’t you the one who told me that I have to catch it? And, if I don’t catch
it, I shouldn’t go see you?”

Jiang Cheng seriously wanted to slap the rotten brat so hard that he went
back inside his mother’s stomach. However, he really did say so himself, and
he shouldn’t prove himself wrong. He could only turn to the cultivators who lay
collapsed on the ground, speaking with satire, “What on Earth could it be,
beating you up in such a dignified way?”
Among the cultivators who wore differently-coloured clothing, a bunch were
the disguised disciples of the YunmengJiang Sect, ordered by Jiang Cheng to
secretly assist Jin Ling, in case he couldn’t overcome the challenge. He was
quite the responsible elder, going to such great lengths. One cultivator still
hadn’t overcome the shock, “Sect, Sect Leader, it’s… It’s Wen Ning…”

Jiang Cheng thought that he had misheard, “What did you say?”

The person replied, “Wen Ning is back!”

In an instant, shock, disgust, anger, and disbelief all crossed Jiang Cheng’s
face.

After a long while passed, he finally spoke bitterly, “The thing was ground to
dust in front of everyone long ago, so how can it come back?”

The disciple spoke, “It really is Wen Ning! There’s no way for it to be wrong!
My eyes couldn’t have mislooked!” He suddenly pointed to the side, “… He
was the one who summoned him!”

Wei WuXian was still in a stalemate with Lan WangJi. Instantly, they were the
center of everyone’s attention. Jiang Cheng’s lightning-like gaze also moved
toward where he stood.

After a moment, the corners of Jiang Cheng’s lips pulled into a twisted smile.
His left hand started to unconsciously stroke the ring again. He spoke softly,
“… Well, well. So you’re back?”

He let go of his left hand, and a long whip dangled from it.

The whip was extremely slender. Like its name, it was a streak of purple
lightning which sizzled, as if it had just been taken away from a sky full of
storm clouds. He held one side of it in his grip. As it was brandished, it
seemed to let out rapid slashes of lightning!

Before Wei WuXian moved, Lan WangJi had already placed his zither in front
of him. With an assured stroke, it was as if a rock had created thousands of
waves in water. The sound of the zither had created countless ripples in the
air, colliding with Zidian. The latter waned, and the former waxed.

Jiang Cheng’s considerations of “not rashly fighting with him” and “not
displeasing the Lan Clan” were as if they were eaten by dogs. The night sky
above Dafan Mountain’s forest was sometimes surging with purple light, and
sometimes as bright as daytime; there were sometimes deafening roars of
thunder, and sometimes waves of the zither’s notes. The rest of the cultivators
quickly retreated into a safe distance away from the scene, standing on the
side and watching. They were both frightened to death and staring in awe.
After all, rarely did one have the chance to watch two famous cultivators of
prominent families combat directly, which was why everyone hoped that the
fight was more violent and intense. Among these thoughts, there were also
some unspeakable hopes for the relationship between the Lan Clan and the
Jiang Clan to fall apart, creating an interesting scenario. On the other hand,
Wei WuXian waited for his chance, and suddenly sprinted off.

The crowd was extremely surprised. He hadn’t been hit by the whip yet only
because Lan WangJi acted as a barricade in front of him. For him, running
away like this was the same as seeking his own death!

Sure enough, as if eyes grew on his back, Jiang Cheng saw that he went
outside Lan WangJi’s area of protection, and was determined to grasp the
chance. With a slanting crack of his whip, Zidian slashed out with the
semblance of a poisonous dragon, precisely landing on the center of his back!

Wei WuXian was almost flung away from the attack of the whip. If not for the
donkey blocking him, he would have directly crashed into a tree. However,
after the blow, both Lan WangJi and Jiang Cheng stopped, looking quite
stunned.
Wei WuXian massaged the back side of his waist, and crawled up with the
support of the donkey. He hid behind it and yelled angrily, “How amazing! You
really can do anything when you’re from a powerful clan, can’t you? You can
even beat up anyone you want! Tsk tsk tsk!”

Lan WangJi, “…”

Jiang Cheng, “…”

He was both shocked and enraged, “What is going on?”

One unique power of “Zidian” was that, if it hit someone who seized another’s
body, their soul and physical form would immediately separate. Without any
exceptions, the person’s soul would be whipped away from the body. Yet, Wei
WuXian was still moving properly and running about after he was hit. The only
explanation was that he did not seize this body.

Wei WuXian thought, of course Zidian couldn’t whip out my soul. I didn’t seize
anyone’s body, but was forcibly given one!

Bewilderment could be seen on Jiang Cheng’s face as he prepared to whip

again, when Lan JingYi suddenly shouted, “Sect Leader Jiang, this should be
enough, right? It was Zidian!”

It was absolutely impossible for the first strike to fail and the second to
succeed, for a magical weapon of such high level like Zidian. If nothing was
taken out, nothing would be taken out; if it wasn’t the seizing of a body, it
wouldn’t be the seizing of a body. In fact, the shout made Jiang Cheng, who
cared about maintaining his reputation above anything else, unable to make
another move.

However, if it wasn’t Wei WuXian, who else could have summoned and
controlled Wen Ning?
Even after thinking it over multiple times, Jiang Cheng still couldn’t accept the
fact. He pointed at Wei WuXian and scowled, “Who on Earth are you?”

Finally, a meddlesome bystander added a word to the conversation. He

coughed, “Sect Leader Jiang, you might have not paid attention to these
things so didn’t know about this. Mo XuanYu was the LanlingJin Sect’s…
Ahem, he used to be a foreign disciple of the Jin Sect. But, because his
spiritual powers were low and he didn’t work hard in his studies, and also had
that… He harassed a peer and was thrown out of the LanlingJin Sect. I’ve
also heard that he lost his marbles? In my opinion, he was probably bitter from
being unable to cultivate using the correct method, he ventured off onto the
wrong path. It might not be… the YiLing Patriarch seizing this body.”

Jiang Cheng asked, “That? Which?”

“That… As in that…”

Someone couldn’t help but to comment, “The cut-sleeve penchant!”

Jiang Cheng’s eyebrows twitched. His eyes which stared at Wei WuXian
seemed more disgusted than before. There were more comments on the
matter, but nobody dared to say them in front of Jiang Cheng.

Although he was infamous, people had to admit that, before the YiLing
Patriarch Wei WuXian had betrayed the YunmengJiang Sect, he was known
for being a handsome young man and a refined cultivator skilled in the six
arts. He ranked the fourth among all of the young masters in the cultivation
world, being described as lively and cheerful. On the other hand, the ill-
tempered Sect Leader Jiang ranked five, surpassed by him, so most people
weren’t so bold as to mention the matter. Wei Ying was a frivolous and
wanton person who loved to have tangled ties with pretty girls. Nobody knew
how many female cultivators he had troubled with his charms, but it was yet
unheard of that he was also attracted to men. Even if he wanted to steal a
body and seek revenge… according to Wei Ying’s taste, he definitely wouldn’t
have chosen a lunatic cut-sleeve who rode a donkey while eating fruits and
painted his face to resemble a hanged ghost!

Someone else muttered, “It’s not him no matter how you look at it… The flute
was also played horribly… This is definitely a case of blind imitation, hearing
how inferior it sounded.”

During the “Sunshot Campaign,” the YiLing Patriarch stood on the battlefield
and played his flute throughout the whole night, controlling the ghost soldiers
as if they were a living army. He swept away all obstacles—whether a human
or god was standing in front of him, he had defeated them. The sound of his
flute was as if it was played by an immortal, absolutely incomparable to the
terrible moans made by the abandoned son of the Jin Clan. No matter how
horrible Wei WuXian’s character was, it was too insulting to compare them like
this.

Wei WuXian felt somewhat offended, … Why don’t you try playing a few notes
after ten-or-so years of not practicing, using a lousy flute made with just a few
slices and cuts? If it sounds pleasant, I’ll kneel in front of you!

A moment ago, Jiang Cheng was certain that this person was Wei WuXian,
and all of the blood in his body started to boil. Yet, now, Zidian was clearly
telling him that he wasn’t. Zidian definitely wouldn’t deceive him or make a
mistake, so he quickly calmed himself and thought, this doesn’t mean
anything. I should first find an excuse to take him back and use every possible
method to get information out of him. It’s impossible for him to not confess
anything or give himself away. I’ve done things like this in the past anyways.
After thinking it through, he made a gesture. The disciples understood his
intention and came over.

Wei WuXian hurriedly jumped behind Lan WangJi with the donkey, and
exclaimed while holding a hand over his chest, “Ah! What are you going to do
to me?”

Lan WangJi gave him a look, putting up with his extremely discourteous,
noisy, and exaggerated behaviour.
Seeing that he had no means of moving over, Jiang Cheng spoke, “Second
Young Master Lan, are you purposely making it difficult for me?”

Everyone in the cultivation world knew that the young leader of the Jiang Clan
watched out for Wei WuXian in an almost crazed manner. He would rather
catch the wrong person than let go of any possibility, and took anyone who
seemed like they held the soul of Wei WuXian away to the YunmengJiang
Sect, inflicting severe torture on his victim. If he wanted to take someone
back, the opposition would surely lose half of their life. Lan SiZhui spoke,
“Sect Leader Jiang. The evidence is clear—Mo XuanYu’s body was not taken.
If so, why should you want to trouble an unimportant person such as him?”

Jiang Cheng replied coldly, “Then, why is Second Young Master Lan going to
such great lengths to protect an unimportant person such as him?”

Out of the blue, Wei WuXian made a few sounds of suppressed laughter.

He spoke, “Sect Leader Jiang, umm, I’ll feel very troubled if you keep on
bothering me like this.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyebrow twitched again. His instincts told him that this person
would definitely not say anything that pleased him.

Wei WuXian spoke, “Thank you for being so enthusiastic. However, your
thoughts are quite off. Even if I am attracted to men, I don’t like just any type
of man, much less follow anyone who waves at me. For example, I’m not
interested in ones like you.”

Wei WuXian was purposely trying to disgust him. Jiang Cheng had always
hated being defeated while compared with others, no matter how pointless the
comparison was. If anyone said that he wasn’t as good as someone else, he’d
be angered and not think about anything else until he won against the person.
As expected, Jiang Cheng’s face darkened, “Oh, really? Then, may I ask
which type you’re interested in?”

Wei WuXian replied, “Which type? Well, I am very much attracted to people
like HanGuang-Jun.”

Lan WangJi could not tolerate this sort of frivolous and foolish joke at all. If he
felt disgusted, he would definitely draw a line between them and keep his
distance. Disgusting two people at once—this was killing two birds with one
stone!

However, as Lan WangJi heard this, he turned around.

His face was emotionless, “Mark your words.”

Wei WuXian, “Hmm?”

Lan WangJi turned back, speaking in a mannerly yet resolute way, “I will take
this person back to the Lan Sect.”

Wei WuXian, “…”

Wei WuXian, “…Huh?”

Chapter 11 Refinement—Part One

The residence of the Lan Sect was located in a remote mountain outside the
city of Gusu.

Mist constantly enveloped the white walls and black roofs of the buildings,
which stretched along the picturesque garden of the waterside pavilion, as if it
was an ocean of clouds in the immortal realm. At dawn, the first rays of the
morning sun shone through the hazy billows of mist that drifted far and wide,
perfectly complementing its name—the “Cloud Recesses.”

In such a tranquil place, one’s heart would be like still water. Only the echoes
of the bell tower could be heard vibrating through the air. Although it was
incomparable to a holy temple, the cold mountains still send forth a lonesome
air of Zen.

However, the ambience was suddenly shattered by a long wail, giving a few
shudders down the backs of the disciples who were training or doing
their morning readings. They couldn’t help but to glance at the direction of
the main entrance, where the sound came from.

Wei WuXian was crying in front of the entrance, clinging onto his donkey. Lan
JingYi spoke, “Stop crying! You said that you liked HanGuang-Jun yourself, so
what are you wailing for, now that he has taken you back?”

Wei WuXian pulled a long face.

He never had the chance to summon Wen Ning again, after the night at Dafan
Mountain. Neither did he have any opportunities to find out why Wen Ning
was unconscious or why he had appeared in this world again, before he was
carried back by Lan WangJi.
When he was in his early youth, he had came to study at the Lan Sect for
three months, along with the disciples of other clans, so he had experienced
the GusuLan Sect’s dull, boring atmosphere in person. In fact, he still
shuddered at the thought of the three-thousand-or-so sect rules which
crammed onto the Wall of Discipline. As he was tugged up the mountain, he
passed by the rock wall again, and saw that a thousand more were carved on.
Now, there were more than four thousand. Four thousand!

Lan JingYi spoke, “There, there! Stop making a ruckus. Noise is prohibited in
the Cloud Recesses.”

He was making loud noises exactly because he didn’t want to enter the Cloud
Recesses!

If he was dragged inside, it would be extremely difficult for him to come

outside again. Back then, when he came to study, all of the disciples were
given a jade token for passage. Only with the token, would a person be able
to enter and leave freely, or else they couldn’t pass through the protective
barrier of the Cloud Recesses. After ten years had passed, the security could
only have gotten stricter, instead of looser.

Lan WangJi stood still in front of the entrance, turning a deaf ear to him, and
watched the scene with an indifferent look. When Wei WuXian’s voice had
somewhat quieted, he spoke, “Let him cry. When he becomes tired, drag him
inside.”

Wei WuXian hugged the donkey and cried even harder, bumping his head
against it.

How misfortunate! He thought that with a whip from Zidian, all of his doubts
would be cleared. At the moment, he felt satisfied with himself and, along with
his mouthful of teasing words, he offhandedly gave Lan WangJi a few
repulsive comments. Yet, who knew that Lan WangJi didn’t follow the routine
he had followed before? What was this all about? Was it possible that, after so
many years, his level of cultivation had increased, but he became more
intolerant?

Wei WuXian spoke, “I’m attracted to men, so with so many beautiful young
men in your sect, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to control myself.”

Lan SiZhui tried to reason with him, “Young Master Mo, it was for your sake
that HanGuang-Jun brought you here. If you do not follow us, Sect Leader
Jiang will not be willing to let the matter go. During these years, there were
countless people whom he caught and took back to Lotus Pier, and none of
those people were ever let out.”

Lan JingYi spoke, “That is right. You have seen Sect Leader Jiang’s methods,
have you not? They are quite cruel…” He paused here, remembering the rule
that stated “talking behind other people’s backs” was prohibited, and secretly
glanced at Lan WangJi. Seeing that HanGuang-Jun didn’t show any means to
chastise him, he was bold enough as to mumble on, “It is all because of the
unhealthy trend that the YiLing Patriarch started. There are so many people
who copy him and cultivate that foolish method. With Sect Leader Jiang being
so suspicious of everyone, is it even possible for him to catch all of them? Just
look at you and your flute skills… Heh.”

The heh told more words than what any sentences could describe. Wei
WuXian felt like he really needed to defend himself, “Well, actually, you might
not believe me, but I usually play the flute quite well…”

Before he finished his defense, a few white-clothed cultivators walked through

the door.

Each person wore the Lan Sect’s uniform, with flowing, plain robes as white
as snow. The man standing in front was tall and slender. Hanging on his waist
was a xiao made of white jade, aside from his sword. As Lan WangJi saw
them, he slightly bowed his head to show respect, and the person did the
same. He looked at Wei WuXian and smiled, “WangJi never brings guests
home. This is?”

As the person stood in front of Lan WangJi, it was as if they were mirror
images. However, the color of Lan WangJi’s eyes was extremely light, as if
they were tinted crystals, while his eyes were of a gentler, darker shade.

This was Lan Huan, the leader of the GusuLan Sect—ZeWu-Jun, Lan

XiChen.

Each place brought up the same kind of people. The GusuLan Sect had
always been known for nurturing a lot of handsome men, especially the two
jades of the clan’s current generation. Even though the two were not twins,
they looked extremely similar to each other, which made it difficult to tell who
was the superior one. Yet, although their appearances were similar, their
personalities were not. Lan XiChen was gentle and benevolent, while Lan
WangJi was overly aloof and stern, keeping everyone at an arm’s length and
being the opposite of amiable. This was why, in the list of the best-looking
young masters in the cultivation world, the former ranked first, and the latter
ranked second.

Lan XiChen proved himself worthy of being the leader of a sect. Even as he
saw Wei WuXian embracing a donkey, he did not appear to be affected at all.
Wei WuXian let go of the donkey with a beaming smile on his face and
approached him. The GusuLan Sect placed a lot of regard on the order of
seniority. If he talked nonsense to Lan XiChen, he would most definitely be
chased off the Cloud Recesses. However, when he just got ready to show his
capabilities, Lan WangJi looked at him. Immediately, his lips were sealed
close.

Lan WangJi turned around and continued his polite conversation with Lan
XiChen, “Brother, are you going to visit LianFang-Zun again?”

Lan XiChen nodded, “To negotiate about the next Discussion Conference at
Jinlin Tower.”
Wei WuXian was unable to open his mouth, so he sourly walked back to the
donkey.

LianFang-Zun was the current leader of the LanlingJin Sect—Jin GuangYao,

the only illegitimate son whom Jin GuangShan approved of. He was Jin Ling’s
youngest uncle, being half-blooded brothers with both Jin Ling’s father, Jin
ZiXuan, and Mo XuanYu. However, although they were both illegitimate sons,
they were extremely different. While Mo XuanYu was in Mo Village, sleeping
on the ground and eating leftovers, Jin GuangYao was sitting in the highest
seat of the cultivation world, summoning the winds and controlling the
rain. If he wanted to talk to Lan XiCheng or initiate a Discussion Conference,
he could do so however he wanted to. Then again, no wonder the sect
leaders of the Lan and Jin sects personally went along quite well—after all,
they were sworn brothers.

Lan XiChen spoke, “Uncle has taken and examined what you brought back
from Mo Village.”

Hearing the words “Mo Village”, Wei WuXian automatically started to pay
attention. Unexpectedly, he felt his lips part. Lan XiChen had released his
silence and spoke to Lan WangJi, “It is not often that you bring somebody
home, being in such good spirits. You need to treat your guest with courtesy,
unlike this.”

Good spirits? Wei WuXian carefully looked at Lan WangJi’s face.

How could he tell that he was in good spirits?!

After watching Lan XiChen leave, Lan WangJi spoke, “Drag him inside.”

Then, Wei WuXian was, indeed, dragged into a place which he swore not to
step inside again.
In the past, only distinguished cultivators had came to visit the Lan Sect, and
never had anyone seen a guest like him before. The juniors all crowded
around him, interested by this new turn of events. If not for the sect rules
being so strict, there would definitely be bouts of laughter along the journey.
Lan JingYi asked, “HanGuang-Jun, where should we drag him to?”

Lan WangJi replied, “The jingshi.”

“… The jingshi?!”

Wei WuXian didn’t know what was going on. The rest stared among
themselves, afraid to make any sound.

It was HanGuang-Jun’s bedroom and study, which he had never invited

anyone inside…

The furniture in the jingshi was extremely simplistic, without any unnecessary
belongings. On the accordion partition, there was a painting of drifting clouds,
floating and morphing with its fine brushwork. A guqin table lay horizontally in
front of it. On top of the three-legged incense stand in the corner, a hollowed
out incense burner made of white jade emitted soft, lingering smoke, filling the
whole room with the chilling scent of sandalwood.

Lan WangJi went to see his uncle to discuss serious matters, while Wei
WuXian was pushed into the room. Right after Lan WangJi left, Wei WuXian
also went outside. He strolled around the Cloud Recesses, and found that, as
he had expected, without the jade token for passage, even if he climbed up
the white walls of a few zhangs’ height, he would be immediately flung off by
the barrier, attracting the attentions of the nearby patrolmen at once.

Wei WuXian could only go back to the jingshi.

He never really worried about anything, no matter what he came across. He
walked around the jingshi with his arms behind his back, firmly believing that,
sooner or later, there would be a solution. The refreshing scent of the
sandalwood was cold and clear. Although it wasn’t sentimental, it had its own
way of tugging one’s heartstrings. With nothing to do, he started to think
random thoughts, Lan Zhan happened to smell like this scent. His clothes
were probably tinged with the fragrance when he was practicing his guqin or
meditating here.

After these thoughts, he couldn’t help but to shift closer to the incense stand
at the corner. With this shift, he became aware that, beneath his foot, one
piece of wood was significantly different from the other places. Wei WuXian
bent down and started to knock here and there, due to curiosity. In his past
life, he did a lot of digging pits, excavating graves, and finding holes in the
ground. After a few moments, he turned a piece of board up.

Finding a secretive space in Lan WangJi’s room was already more than
enough to surprise Wei WuXian. However, after he saw what was hidden
inside, he was even more surprised.

After flipping the wooden board open, a mellow aroma had filled the air,
unnoticeable when it was mixed with the sandalwood scent. Seven or eight
black jars were packed into a small, square cellar.

Sure enough, Lan WangJi had changed—he even started to hide liquor!

The Cloud Recesses prohibited liquor. Because of this, the first time they met,
they had a small fight. Lan WangJi ended up spilling a jar of the “Emperor’s
Smile” which he brought back from the city of Gusu.

After he returned from Gusu to Yunmeng, Wei WuXian never had the chance
to drink the “Emperor’s Smile” made exclusively by Gusu’s experts ever again.
He had thought about this for his entire life, always telling himself to come
back to taste it if he ever received the opportunity. But, the opportunity never
came. Hidden in here was no other than the liquor—he didn’t even need to
open and taste it, and knew that it was an “Emperor’s Smile” just by the smell
of it. He would never have thought that he would find a liquor-hiding vault in
the room of a person as scrupulous and abstinent as Lan WangJi’s. Karma
really outdid itself with this reincarnation.

As Wei WuXian exclaimed upon the matter, he finished one jar already. He
had a high tolerance for alcohol and loved to drink. After he came to the
conclusion that Lan WangJi still owed him a jar of Emperor’s Smile and it was
time to collect his interests, he drank another jar. When he was just starting to
get tipsy, a thought suddenly passed his mind. How hard was it to get the jade
token? In the Cloud Recesses, there was a cold spring with a lot of miraculous
effects, for the male cultivators to use. It was said to be able to calm down
one’s heart, clear one’s mind, quench one’s fire, and so on. When he went
into the cold spring, he was bound to take off his clothing. Then, with his
clothing already off, there would be no where to put it aside from holding it in
his mouth, which was definitely out of question.

Wei WuXian clapped his hands and finished the last gulp in the jar. After
searching, he found that there were no places to throw it away, so he filled the
empty jars with clear water and sealed the lids again, stuffing them back
inside and closing the wooden board. With this done, he ventured out to find
the jade token.

Although the Cloud Recesses had been burnt down before the “Sunshot
Campaign” happened, the rebuilt structure of the area was the same. Wei
WuXian walked through the winding paths from memory, and soon found the
cold spring, situated at a quiet and obscure place.

The disciple on duty for watching over the cold spring was quite a distance
away. The female cultivators were in another quarter of the Cloud Recesses
and didn’t come here to use it. Nobody in the Lan Sect did an impudent thing
such as coming to the cold spring to watch others bathe, anyway. Therefore,
the security wasn’t strict at all and it was extremely easy to overcome, making
it easy for Wei WuXian to go and shame himself. And, coincidentally, there
was a set of white clothes on top of the white rocks behind the crisscrossed
eupatorium grasses, meaning that someone had already came.

The set of white clothes was folded extremely neatly, almost making one’s
hair rise. It looked like a snow-white piece of tofu—even the forehead ribbon
was folded without any creases. As Wei WuXian put his hand in and searched
for the jade token of passage, he was almost reluctant to mess it up.
Afterward, stepping over the bushes of eupatorium grasses, his gaze passed
over the spring, and suddenly halted.

The water in the cold spring was freezing. Unlike a hot spring, there wasn’t
any vapour to shroud one’s eyes, so it was possible to take a clear look at the
upper half of the person in the spring who stood with his back to him.

The person in the spring was quite tall. His skin was fair and his hair was
black, wet and gathered to one side. The lines which outlined his waist and
back were smooth, graceful yet holding strength. In simpler terms, he was a
beauty.

However, Wei WuXian was definitely not stunned and unable to avert his gaze
because he was looking at a bathing beauty. No matter how beautiful he was,
he wouldn’t actually be attracted to men. Really, it was the things on the
person’s back that made him unable to avert his gaze.

There were dozens of intersecting scars.

They were the scars from a discipline whip. In the different sects, there was a
type of discipline whip to punish disciples of that sect who made significant
mistakes. After the torture, the scars would never disappear. Although Wei
WuXian had never been hit by a discipline whip before, Jiang Cheng had
been. Even after desperately trying, he couldn’t make the disgracing imprint
fade one bit. This was why Wei WuXian would never misremember scars like
this.

Usually, with only one or two strikes of the discipline whip, it would already be
enough of a punishment for the bearer to remember it for their whole life,
never to make the same mistake ever again. The amount of scars on this
person’s back accumulated thirty at the least. Just what sort of monstrous
crime did he commit for him to be whipped so many times? If it really was a
monstrous crime, why didn’t they kill him?

At the moment, the person in the spring turned around. Beneath his
collarbone and near his heart, there was a clear sear. Seeing the sear, Wei
WuXian’s shock instantly reached its highest peak.