Chapter Text
There's an impressive amount of wind and noise, but when it all dies down, Mo Xuanyu is still knelt in the middle of the curse array, five long gashes sliced into his arm.
It didn't work.
The disappointment that rises nearly chokes him. This was his only way out that left him with a shred of dignity, or any hope that his tormentors would be punished.
His shoulders slump, his eyes still closed. He's trying to summon the energy to pick up the knife and finish the job—dignity or no dignity—when he hears a low groan from what has to be only inches away.
His eyes snap open. He was alone when he performed the ritual, but now there is another person inside the curse array with him.
The person groans again, then speaks, voice rough as if from disuse, but clear. "What the fuck?"
Mo Xuanyu gives an involuntary little yelp. This is not what was supposed to happen!
The person lifts his head from the floor at the sound and looks straight at Mo Xuanyu.
"Who are you? Where am I?" He seems disoriented.
"W—Wei Wuxian?" Mo Xuanyu asks, his voice wavering.
"No, that's me," the person—Wei Wuxian!—says. "I asked who you are."
Mo Xuanyu reaches out and grabs Wei Wuxian's left hand, tugging it ungently towards himself. He pushes back the black sleeve, and his pulse races at the five cuts he sees there, identical to the ones on his own arm.
"Hey!" Wei Wuxian says, snatching his arm back. "What's this about? Why am I alive? Who are you?"
Mo Xuanyu looks the Yiling Patriarch straight in the eye and feels a deep calm settle over him. "I'm Mo Xuanyu," he says. "I brought you back to life. And I need you to kill my family."
***
In the end, an almost suspiciously convenient angry sword spirit makes short work of the rest of the Mo family. Which is fortunate, because the fearsome Yiling Patriarch proved to be strangely squeamish at the prospect of killing a few really terrible people.
"What have people been saying about me all these years?" Wei Wuxian gripes, while they watch the corpses of Mo Xuanyu's relatives fight in the courtyard. "Am I really the scariest dead person you could think of to take your revenge?"
"Yes," Mo Xuanyu says honestly. "Also, it was your ritual. I figured if it would work on anyone, it would be you."
Wei Wuxian hums thoughtfully. "Not completely unreasonable I guess. Although." He gestures between the two of them. "It didn't go exactly according to plan, did it?"
Mo Xuanyu scowls. As if he needs the reminder that he wasn't supposed to be here anymore. His abusers are dead (all except one), but his soul is still bleeding from the wounds they left, so much deeper than the bruises and scars on his body. There's a reason he chose the sacrificing ritual. He's not whole anymore, doesn't think he even has enough pieces left to put himself back together. Revenge is coldly satisfying, but it can't heal him. He knew that when he summoned Wei Wuxian in what was supposed to be his final act.
Before he can voice any of this, or even decide if he wants to, the sound of a guqin cuts the night. Wei Wuxian stiffens beside him, then grabs his wrist, tugging him out of sight around a corner.
"Huh?" Mo Xuanyu exclaims, startled by the sudden manhandling.
Wei Wuxian claps a hand over his mouth, shushing him emphatically. Mo Xuanyu pushes him away, but stays quiet, following Wei Wuxian's intense stare.
A man who can only be the famed Hanguang Jun alights on the roof of Mo Manor, guqin poised for battle. It's impressive, but Mo Xuanyu's attention is drawn back to his companion. Despite his obvious alarm at Hanguang Jun's arrival, his face is… soft.
"Still wearing his mourning clothes," Wei Wuxian murmurs with a fond smile that sends Mo Xuanyu's brain screaming to a halt, because what?
As far as he's heard any cultivators tell it these days, Hanguang Jun and the Yiling Patriarch were rivals at best, outright enemies at worst. But the look on Wei Wuxian's face tells a different story, at least on one side anyway.
While the Lan juniors cheer the arrival of their mentor and teacher, Wei Wuxian shakes his head as if to clear it. "Come on," he says to Mo Xuanyu in a low voice. "Hanguang Jun can handle this mess. We need to go."
Go where? Mo Xuanyu thinks but doesn't say. It doesn't matter. Their fates, it seems, are bound together, at least until the last curse scar is taken care of. So where Wei Wuxian goes, he also goes. It's not as if anything is keeping him at Mo Manor anymore. Mo Xuanyu thinks darkly of his final intended victim. He suspects this one will be much more difficult to dispatch than the Mo family had been.
So he follows while Wei Wuxian steals a donkey and leads them out of town, a light shadow to the dark figure ahead of him.
"Where are we going?" he asks after they've been on the road a while.
Wei Wuxian shrugs. "Away," he says carelessly. "Why, is there somewhere you have in mind?"
Mo Xuanyu hasn't told him who their last victim is yet. Wei Wuxian had asked, but hadn't pushed when Mo Xuanyu refused to answer. He's not ready for that. Not yet. He was never supposed to have to face him again.
He shakes his head. "No. I haven't left Mo Manor in years."
"Then I guess it's up to Lil Apple," Wei Wuxian says. "I've apparently been dead for 16 years, so it's not like I have any idea where we should go."
He seems cheerfully indifferent to both having been dead before and being alive currently. Mo Xuanyu wonders what that's like.
"Sure," he says. "Might as well follow an ass around."
Wei Wuxian whirls around. "Such a mouth on you! Is that any way to talk to your elder?" The words are scolding, but there's a feral smile playing on his lips, like Mo Xuanyu has pleased him, though he has no idea how.
He raises an eyebrow. "Of course not, Wei Qianbei," he says, the corner of his mouth twitching with the beginning of a sarcastic smirk. "My apologies."
Wei Wuxian shakes his head, looking like he's trying to contain a laugh. "Young people these days," he laments. "No respect."
There's a baffling hint of approval in his voice that Mo Xuanyu turns over in his mind for several miles down the road.