Chapter Text
Bai Lian breathed out another heavy sigh.
It's unknown how many days since he had been trapped here in the abyss. Bai Lian tilted his head up for who knew how many times either. But still, there's nothing to be seen up there. Not a single ray of sunlight reached the bottom of this gorge. The only source of light would be those floating fluorescent glows.
How was he going to escape from this place?
Another sigh was breathed out.
He sat down and leaned on the nearby stone. His mind wandered back to the old hometown where he grew up. How many years had it been since the last time he came back? He couldn't remember when was the last time he spent Chinese New Year with his family. His younger sister...that annoying brat, how old was she again? She should be around 15, right? It's time to get married. Or had she married already?
Bai Lian recalled the young men in his village who had yet married and were eligible to marry his sister.
'Ah, but maybe she likes someone else from another village?'
He frowned slightly. That wouldn't do. His younger sister was spoiled and squeamish. She couldn't even lift a pot of rice and cried when the needle hurt her fingers during embroidery class. If she married far away from home, what would she do if her in-laws were dissatisfied with her?
'...Girls are really worrying.'
Speaking of which, his parents had always wanted a baby girl that even before Bai Lian was born they prepared a name suitable for a delicate lady. As a result, a rough baby boy was born. Fortunately, a few years later their prayer was heard, and his younger sister was finally born into this world. Her birth was something that was anticipated by everyone in the household. Bai Lian wished her to be eternally happy and continue to meet people who loved her as much as her family did.
...As much as him, the older brother, had cherished her.
The thoughts in his mind were interrupted by some noises coming from another corner of the abyss.
'There are people!'
Bai Lian was about to jump out from behind the stone he was currently leaning in, but his movement was halted once he saw the newcomers more clearly. The moment his sight fell onto the person walking in the front with a leisurely gait, he felt like he had been thrown into an ice cave.
'Why! Why is it him? Why must it be him that I encounter!?'
Bai Lian quickly lowered his presence as faint as he could. He wished to be swallowed by the Earth if possible. Anything at all, but being discovered by that person!
'It's him, it's him...! He's coming! Any DaluoJinxian above, please save this unworthy one!'
Even if that person was wearing a bright red robe and was currently plastering a smile on his face, but Bai Lian would never mistook him for anyone else. That person, someone whom he once saw during the end of Sunshot Campaign. That first and also last meeting had left an irremovable impression in his memory.
Back then, almost every Cultivator who wasn't injured was dragged to join the last siege of Nightless City. The reputation of Wei Wuxian on the battlefield had been spread far and wide during the past year of neverending wars. It's impossible for Bai Lian not to know about him. However, that day was the first time he ever took a glimpse over the said man.
Remembering what happened that day in Nightless City, the deepest primal instinct was forced to awaken from within him. The earth-shattering roars of countless evil entities sent dread to the depths of one's soul. The dark and gloomy night. The piercing sound of Dizi lingered in the wind. The person wearing the darkest robe with a cold expression on his pale face.
Bai Lian felt his entire body shaking from extreme fear. He tried his best to suppress the foreboding sentiment slowly creeping out, engulfing him from within. However, the vision in his eyes started to dart around uncontrollably, causing the scene in front of him to sway between dark and light.
"Oh my? A handsome brother is here."
Following the playful greeting, a head popped out from behind the stone, revealing the face of the red-robed young man, Wei Wuxian, with a tilted smile on his lip.
"AIIIHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Someone was screeching from the top of their lung.
"Save me! Save me! Buddha!! DaoZu!!"
Someone was howling desperately.
"No, No, No! Please let me go!! Don't come here, I beg you, uuuuuuhh..."
Someone was pitifully pleading for mercy.
"...Uhh..uuu...huhuhuuuu...King Yama... Houtu NiangNiang...Your Majesty YuHuang...Anyone! Save me..."
Someone was crying so heartbreakingly.
The red-robed young man hopped onto the top of the stone and sat cross-legged. He didn't interrupt any howls or cries from Bai Lian at all. Instead, he simply watched him with interest as Bai Lian called out every top figure from Heaven to Hell.
After quite some time, he parted his mouth and said, "How rude. Screaming the moment you've seen my face. As if I'm a monster."
Bai Lian didn't dare to look at him at all and continued to curl up on the ground.
"...It's a monster calling others a monster." He laughed lightly at the end of his words.
Bai Lian froze.
Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji finally caught up with Wei Wuxian on this side.
"Wei-Gongzi! What's the matter? The sound just now, what...is that...?"
The two were left surprised once again not long ago after the heart-palpitating jump that Wei Wuxian had done. The sweetheart had yet again rushed somewhere in the blink of an eye, without telling anything. Right after his disappearance, they heard the ear-piercing howls.
Bai Lian recognized the two and whimpered, "Zewu-Jun, Hanguang-Jun."
Lan Xichen's words halted as he saw what was in front of Wei Wuxian. He gave no response and frowned slightly instead, turning his gaze to look at Wei Wuxian who was perching on the stone. Lan Wangji never said anything from beginning to end and was also glancing quietly at Wei Wuxian.
"Oh, he's greeting you. He said, Zewu-Jun, Hanguang-Jun." Wei Wuxian explained from the side.
Lan Xichen glanced back at Bai Lian before looking at Wei Wuxian again, hesitating to say, "This mummy..."
Wei Wuxian smiled. "Judging from his robes, must be one of the Cultivators sent earlier to explore the way."
Mummy?
The moment this word was uttered, it's as if an illusion had been broken.
'Ahh...That's right...I'm dead already...'
The dried mummy in front of Wei Wuxian let out a Hoh Hohh sound from his throat. His skin was rough and wrinkled like tree bark. The cheeks were sunken and the eye sockets were filled with nothing but two fluorescent dots. The nails on his fingers were dark and long, resembling rows of claws.
Wei Wuxian rubbed his chin. "It's a different type of walking corpse. The appearance becomes like this, is it due to the difference in environment?"
He jumped down from the stone and started to circle around the mummy. "Handsome brother, why don't you stand up and let me inspect you closely?"
Lan Xichen walked forward and smiled. "Is there any difference? Let me help you check it."
Bai Lian curled his body tighter and clung to the ground further. The more he was unable to stand up at all.
Lan Wangji frowned at the side. "He can not move?"
"Oh?" As if realizing something, Wei Wuxian laughed helplessly. "My bad, it's my fault. He shouldn't be able to move, it seems."
Bai Lian heard his words and was finally thoroughly awakened from his illusion.
He should have realized it.
He should have understood.
Why did he feel extreme fear toward this red-robed young man...
The hysteria that he felt earlier wasn't merely the trauma coming from his past memory of seeing Wei Wuxian on the battlefield.
His desperate fear earlier wasn't because he was frightened by Wei Wuxian's past actions.
It's because he, Bai Lian, feared Wei Wuxian from his deepest instinct...as a resentful entity. The terror in his heart was due to the suppression of a higher Being. After his death, he seemed to have been naturally transforming into a Walking Corpse, a resentful entity. Still, he's one who wasn't strong enough to stand up in front of Wei Wuxian properly, much less bear his command.
Now that all of those illusions were ripped off, Bai Lian had to accept the reality, that he was the monster, and Wei Wuxian was the human.
Truly a monster yelling a monster.
Wei Wuxian turned around and looked at Lan Wangji, "Lan Zhan, why don't you ask him with Inquiry? I'll go over there."
Bai Lian growled another hohh hohh sound from his throat.
Lan Wangji glanced at Wei Wuxian, "What did he say?"
"Hm? Oh, he agreed to talk with Hanguang-Jun. Okay, then, Lan Zhan, I'll bother you with the queries, and Zewu-Jun, I'll take on your offer to help me inspect." Wei Wuxian grinned. "As for me, I'll take a look around for a bit."
Lan Xichen, "...Alright."
The last strum of the Zither reverberated in the enclosed space under the deep cliff.
"I understand." Lan Wangji put aside WangjiQin and glanced at the approaching person.
From the darkness, Wei Wuxian's figure slowly emerged under the light, walking at a relaxed pace to the previous spot. "How is it?" He noticed Lan Wangji had finished the Inquiry over here.
"He is one of the latest batch of Cultivators sent here."
"As expected." Wei Wuxian nodded.
The two of them fell silent and waited until Lan Xichen finished playing Rest with Liebing.
"Wei-Gongzi is right." Lan Xichen hung back his Xiao to his waist. "It's not just the appearance of the Walking Corpse that's quite different. Even the transformation was somewhat odd."
"How do you say so?"
"From the previous Inquiry, there is no specific desire enough to incite the transformation of a Walking Corpse." Lan Wangji explained.
He added afterward, "His strongest desire probably is to see his younger sister living happily."
Wei Wuxian commented, "That's quite a general longing."
"Indeed. It's inevitable for people to have a wish that their loved ones will live more comfortably. But such desire shouldn't be enough to incite deeper sentiment usually. Otherwise, how many people who wished to get rich die and rise as a Walking Corpse after?"
Lan Xichen chuckled in the end, finding it funny as he imagined Walking Corpses rose in great numbers, and when they were asked what's their grievance, they said "I want to be rich!"
The moment he allowed a chuckle to slip out, he was startled. Unknowingly, he'd been rather influenced by Wei Wuxian, enough to actually joke about dying. Next, as he took off the gloves from his hands after groping around the corpse just now to inspect him meticulously, he realized, it's already a foregone conclusion.
Lan Xichen laughed wryly in his heart. If it were him in the past year, why would he bother to examine the Walking Corpse in detail? A Cultivator's job is to resolve grievances and exorcise evils. So what if the appearance of the evil entities looked different? So long as the grievance was solved, the peculiar appearance had nothing to do with the exorcism.
The procedure he would have done before was totally different from today. Subconsciously, his approach to night hunting had also been influenced by Wei Wuxian. Having a spouse who walked in the path of a GuiDao, he was brought to learn and empathize more with the target of his night hunt. It's no longer a simple exorcising, but a thorough investigation.
Forget it. He really should be prepared to be a corpse examiner. Most likely, he'd be dragged to be a Ghost Cognoscente as well in the future. Lan Xichen brushed off the thoughts in his mind and started to tell Wei Wuxian the result of his inspection.
"Hmm..." Wei Wuxian glanced around at the surrounding valley and smiled. "Interesting."
From Lan Wangji's Inquiry, the handsome brother named Bai Lian didn't know how he died. He got separated from his group so he had no clue about how his other companions had died either. Lan Xichen's examination of the corpse revealed that he died due to poisoning. The question then became, who poisoned him?
Wei Wuxian's face became serious, "It seems like we're not alone down here..."
His voice became lower as he whispered, "...Look around the darkness, can you see some light over there? What is that? Are those...humans' eyes? Or are they...something else?"
His breath hitched, and he looked around vigilantly. "Not good! Maybe we've been surrounded! What should we do?"
Lan Xichen, "..."
Lan Wangji, "..."
Wei Wuxian glimpsed upon their blank stares and he put aside his anxious look earlier, lamenting, "It's really boring. You two should've felt spooked and scared! Aiyooo...we should've brought some disciples along with us to add merry..." He sighed with deep regret.
Going into a night hunt with two of the most powerful Cultivators in this era, proved to be quite difficult for Wei Wuxian. As he was unable to tease them with some horror! If there were some young disciples, maybe they'd scream in terror with just the wind blowing.
Lan Xichen laughed helplessly. "Wei-Gongzi..." He seized his waist and gave a slight squeeze. "Enough playing around. What have you found from your walk just now?"
"Not much. I saw our brother Bai's companions there."
"Have they risen as a walking corpse?" Lan Wangji caught his words.
Wei Wuxian shook his head. "None of them."
"Not a single one?" Lan Xichen was surprised.
His assumption was this cliff might be quite similar to Burial Mound where evil entities were nurtured and incited from the site. "How about their remains? Was it similar to fellow Cultivator Bai over here?"
"No. They're decomposing at a normal rate as it should be."
This Cliff in Kunlun Mountain was freezing cold. People who died here had their corpses preserved quite well. Their appearance remained close to the ones they had before death.
"They died similarly from poisoning." Wei Wuxian added.
Lan Wangji frowned slightly. His gaze scanned around the darkened part of the long gully of the valley. "I have not sensed any presence of people or other things." He said.
"Neither have I." Wei Wuxian responded.
Lan Xichen nodded as well. If even Wei Wuxian hadn't sensed any "thing" at all, then there should really be nothing here. But then, how to explain the death of Bai Lian and his other companions?
"Even so..." Wei Wuxian murmured, "This place itself feels unnerving to me."
Lan Wangji, "How?"
"It reminds me of the feelings I have whenever I dived and stayed underwater, Hm?"
OooooNngg!
The three of them stopped talking and looked at each other. From another part of the gorge, a loud howling was heard. It sounded far and near, echoing across the stone passages.
Lan Wangji quietly said, "The unidentified howls that the travelers heard."
Wei Wuxian turned around and suddenly pounced into Lan Xichen's arms. "Huan-Ge! That scared me!" He smothered his face into the crook of Lan Xichen's neck and clung his hands to his front collars.
Lan Xichen, "..."
Lan Wangji clenched his hand and averted his gaze. "Let's check it out." He spun around and walked in the direction of the sound.
He walked so fast that in just a few breaths he had been swallowed in the darkness ahead.
"Wait! Lan Zhan! That's cheating! Don't go before me! I want to see it first!"
In an instant, Wei Wuxian who was supposedly trembling in fright in Lan Xichen's arms had pried himself off and dashed in front, following Lan Wangji. He too, soon was swallowed in the darkness at the bottom of the valley. The only one left behind was the speechless Lan Xichen along with Brother Bai.
He was about to catch up with the other two, but he glanced at Brother Bai and paused for a moment. In the end, he took out a Spirit Pouch and put aside Bai Lian's corpse. Let's keep it first, just in case they didn't go back around this way later.
A few hours had passed since the three intruders dived into the mysterious canyon.
It's evening, right after the sun had set. The thick mist hanging on the cliff seemed to shroud the bottom of the ravine.
Among the darkness, suddenly a dim bluish light glowed from within. Wei Wuxian saw the approaching light and paused his pace. The light turned brighter as it crept closer to his spot and finally, a person was seen walking out from the swathe of mists.
"Zewu-Jun!" Wei Wuxian lit up and bounced toward the person.
Lan Xichen was holding Shuoyue, letting the sword glimmer in the dark. As he saw Wei Wuxian, he injected more spiritual energy into the sword, and the soft glow from the blade turned brighter. "Wei-Gongzi."
He steadied Wei Wuxian who had pounced over his body again. The other party hugged his free arm and rubbed his head on his shoulder. "Good, it's you that I met!"
Lan Xichen huffed and nagged at him, "You and Wangji, why do you have to rush ahead in such a place? Look, we've been separated now."
Wei Wuxian pouted and hid his face to his upper arm. "I can't help it. I'm just curious."
"Where is Wangji?"
"Hm? I don't know. When I ran after him, he has disappeared. I can't find him. Why did he run off so suddenly anyway?" He pouted his lips in complaint.
Lan Xichen's hand holding the sword clenched a little.
He glanced at the person beside him and asked quietly, "So, Wangji isn't around here?"
"Yes!" Wei Wuxian lifted his head and turned to face him as he spoke ambiguously, "Now that he isn't here anymore to bother us, Zewu-Jun, let's do something more exciting..."
"...Bother us?" Lan Xichen smiled and looked at him meaningfully.
Wei Wuxian pouted and whined, "Isn't he? Why did you agree with him tagging with us, anyway? I asked you to go with me, just the two of us. Why did he have to go along? With him dangling around being a third party, we can't do anything freely."
Lan Xichen's eyes flickered slightly. "...Umm."
Wei Wuxian continued to grumble, "Now it's great, if it weren't for him running off suddenly like that, pretending to be brave and causing trouble, would we be in this situation? Serve him right. Now he gets separated from us."
"...Well, you've said it." The corner of Lan Xichen's lips twitched.
"Forget it. Zewu-Jun, I said I didn't sense anything before, but actually, I sensed something not quite right around here." Wei Wuxian dragged his arm to walk in some direction.
"What did you sense?" Lan Xichen asked him quietly.
"Huh? I can't describe the feeling. But I think if I get closer I might know what it is."
The two of them walked quite a distance. There were some twists and turns, if someone with a bad sense of direction walked here, they wouldn't be able to distinguish North from East. Even those who were usually good at it would lose their sense of direction after running around in such a dark and misty gorge.
"It's here!" Wei Wuxian exclaimed and once again dashed forward.
He turned around and said, "Zewu-Jun, here, come I-, ughhhh!!!"
Wei Wuxian looked at his chest blankly.
The bluish glare from Shuoyue was still glowing softly from the tip of the sword. It illuminated the dark patch slowly wetting his red outer robe from the center where the tip of the sword was embedded in his left chest. A rustic scent soon spread out in the air.
Wei Wuxian looked up with a disbelieving stare on his face. "Zew, Zewu-Jun? You...ughh...why?"
Lan Xichen stood quietly, a dozen feet away from him. His right hand was posing the sword seal, controlling Shuoyue to puncture deeper. Wei Wuxian fell to his knees. His face was extremely pale and blood started to drip from his mouth as well.
"Who are you!? You're not Lan Xichen!"
There was a strange smile unfurling on the person opposite. His face was cold and emotionless.
"How funny. Wei Wuxian, who do you think you are kvetching about my younger brother? Oh, I think you've grown arrogant from my past indulgence."
"What are you talking about...?" Wei Wuxian clasped his chest and looked up in a trance.
The Lan Xichen opposite laughed lightly. "I have only tolerated you this far because of Wangji's affection toward you. If it weren't for his fancy, do you think I would let you do however you want? Who do you think you are, barging into our close brotherhood?"
Wei Wuxian fell into a daze. "Zewu-Jun, you..."
Taking advantage of Wei Wuxian's shocked state, Lan Xichen changed the sword seal in his hand and Shuoyue rotated in a flash, splitting Wei Wuxian's figure in half!
It's already outlandish for someone with no sword at all to counter those with the sword.
And it's even more impossible to avoid the attack of a Spiritual Sword once it's locked into your body.
No matter how strong or agile Wei Wuxian was, he couldn't stop the movement of Shuoyue.
Until his body was ripped in two, his right leg and left leg fell in different directions, he still couldn't figure out what had happened.
His eyes were wide open with an aggrieved and dazed look, as if he couldn't understand why the person in front of him had suddenly turned around and stabbed him mercilessly.
Lan Xichen summoned Shuoyue back and looked on faintly.
He said, "Nice try. But next, try better."
The scene under the deep cliff was still quiet.
There was no one replying to Lan Xichen's words.
It's as if Lan Xichen was speaking by himself.
Nevertheless, Lan Xichen stood calmly and continued to speak, "Do you know what kind of person Wei Wuxian is?"
Lan Xichen injected more spiritual energy into Shuoyue and let it shine brightly, radiating the area several dozen feet around.
His face was still emotionless as he spoke, "Wei Wuxian is someone who acts more like the unrestrained and masculine Jianghu Heroes. Someone who'll chew the grass on his lips and sit crossing his legs. Even when he flirts with others, he will do it with a smile. When complaining, he will do it casually or do it in a teasing manner. If he truly complains in displeasure he will frown and his expression becomes colder. Pouting like a spoiled young mistress isn't his type of behavior."
The corpse of 'Wei Wuxian' twitched slightly.
Lan Xichen continued calmly, "Next, Wei-Gongzi can't regard Wangji as a bother. He can't wait to celebrate whenever he can go and play with Wangji, how is that possible for him to dislike Wangji's presence? More importantly, he will never criticize Wangji as pretending to be brave or causing trouble. We all know each other's abilities. What Wangji will do is something he will do as well. That's just how synchronized they are as partners. Let's not mention that, in this world, Wangji is probably someone he adores the most in his heart, it's basically impossible for Wei-Gongzi to speak badly of him."
There was a strange laughing sound from 'Wei Wuxian' on the ground. "Huh...so that's how it is...eheheheheeh...my bad...my bad..."
The split corpse of 'Wei Wuxian' started to squirm and began to join each other again. "...Speaking of which, as expected of you Zewu-Jun, no mercy at all even toward his 'spouse'...without hesitation, a stab right to his chest..."
Shuoyue still hovered in the air and Lan Xichen's hand was still curled in a sword seal.
"I will have no mercy to those who meant harm to me. Especially when it's not Wei-Gongzi at all." Lan Xichen smiled kindly.
"Right, there is one more thing that you inferred wrongly. Let me tell you, Wei-Gongzi never shies away or holds himself back from doing whatever he wants to me even if there's Wangji around. If he saw Wangji looking uncomfortable, he would do more brazen things to me instead, to tease him more."
Lan Xichen chuckled lightly. "Yes, he's that impossible, a 10,000-year-old wood that can't be carved. I have to be the one stopping him from going too far and being tactful not to stir Wangji's jealousy further..."
The 'Wei Wuxian' on the ground rose with an unnatural movement.
It laughed strangely, "...ehehehehehehehh...how pitiful...Lan Xichen, Lan Xichen...poor thing. Recognizing an impostor due to the lack of love his husband displays for someone else....ehehehehehehheeheh..."
Lan Xichen's lip curled in a slight smile. "What can I say? After all, I'm the Thief who barged in halfway and stole someone else's beloved person..."
His left hand suddenly moved to form another seal.
"Wha-, Huh? Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!"
'Wei Wuxian' screamed as suddenly a talisman that was pasted on his lower back on his sash glowed with the seal on Lan Xichen's hand.
It's a talisman Lan Xichen had slipped onto it when the creature acted coy and hugged his arm all over before.
"My apologies. I have learned how to be sneaky from Wei-Gongzi." Lan Xichen grinned and soon slapped another set of talismans to reinforce the first set.
"How dare you!! How dare you!!!!!" It screeched an inhuman speech and the appearance of 'Wei Wuxian' that it used before was distorted into something else, completely showing its real nature.
It struggled desperately but the runes from the talisman had glowed brightly in red, binding the creature even tighter.
"Oh, pardon me, I forgot to say, those talismans are from Wei-Gongzi by the way. I think he used blood instead of cinnabar." Lan Xichen politely apologized once again.
As the creature heard that the seal contained the blood of that Damn Human whom it avoid at all cost, it howled even more in injustice.
"Foolish human!!! Do you know who I am? Quick, get this dirty blood away from my pure body!! I will grant you immortality!! I can grant you eternal life!!!"
Lan Xichen narrowed his eyes.
He gave no comeback and instead pressed his lips into a thin line and clasped his hands, finishing the seal.
The creature looked at him, this time with pure disbelief as it screeched "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Curse you foolish human!!!!! Ahahahhahahah but it's too late, too late, hahahahhhhhhhhhhh....."
It finally got sealed into a pouch.
Lan Xichen furrowed his eyebrows slightly.
Before he had the time to ponder what this creature was or what it meant by "too late" , suddenly the ground beneath him, the wall around him, and even the air above him, lit up in countless arrays.
"Wha-!!"
The rest of his words were wiped out.