GDC Chapter 1: 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.

Like Loading...
GDC Chapter 2: 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.