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They were out on a routine nighthunt, not far from the foothills of Cloud Recesses. It was part of Zewu-Jun’s plans to make sure his younger brother wasn’t crushed by the trivial social interactions required by his position as Chief Cultivator.
Jingyi was on watch as the others slept, waiting until it was fully dark to wake them all to prepare for the hunt.
He looked over them. Hanguang-Jun meditated peacefully, all dressed in white. Sizhui, beside him, looked like a mirror image of his adopted father. Lan Shaochen and the rest of the disciples were sitting to various degrees of perfect posture, all conserving and storing their spiritual energy for the hunt.
Branches cracked on one side of the clearing, and Jingyi jumped to his feet. A few cultivators walked in, and bowed.
Jingyi relaxed. This wasn’t the first time that had happened. Sometimes, two groups hunting the same things would join up and combine forces. In this case, it was an increased number of fierce corpses in the area.
Jingyi didn’t immediately recognise the sect the cultivators were from, but that was okay. There were many small sects he wouldn’t recognise.
They noticed Jingyi, standing, and two of them made their way over. Jingyi bowed.
As he stood back up, something pressed against his throat. He let out a strangled gulp. Instantly, the clearing filled with the swirling of white robes as the Lan disciples leapt to their feet. Half of them unsheathed their weapons, only to pause as they saw the blade cutting a thin line into Jingyi’s neck.
Jingyi huffed. Of course. Of course, the one time he decided to talk first, they turned out to be evil. He wasn’t particularly worried.
Hanguang-Jun was there, after all.
He was standing, one hand on Bichen and the other on Wangji, glaring furiously. Jingyi winced in sympathy.
The blade pressed closer against his throat. A warm trickle ran down his neck.
The man holding him gestured to the cultivator beside him, who tossed Hanguang-Jun a qiankun bag. “Eat that,” he instructed brusquely.
Hanguang-Jun held it up to the light. He hesitated.
The blade sliced deeper into Jingyi’s throat. He felt his eyes go wide and panicked, but he could no longer talk without fear of losing his throat. He wanted to say “Hanguang-Jun, don’t!” but he couldn’t.
Hanguang-Jun eyed him steadily. "This is not your fault," he said, and Jingyi felt all of the guilt rush out of him.
Hanguang-Jun weighed the bag in his hand consideringly, and then tipped it into his mouth. He swallowed, and collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap of white robes. The blade against Jingyi’s throat moved away, and he was shoved forwards to land against the forest floor. There was blood, sticky and hot, trickling down his neck. He couldn’t feel the pain.
Sizhui lifted him to his feet, and then drew his sword. Around him, the other disciples followed suit.
The man who had held Jingyi laughed, mockingly. “I wouldn’t do that if I was you. After all, I’m the only one with the antidote to what your precious Hanguang-Jun just took.”
Sizhui hesitated, and then glanced between the other disciples. Everything they had been taught dictated that they should draw their weapons and attack, but -
But this was Hanguang-Jun, who had protected and guided them all through their junior years. Who had requested their troupe as the one to go on this nighthunt with him. Who had saved each of them more than once.
“What do you want?” Sizhui asked, still not sheathing his sword.
“The Yiling Laozu, of course!”
Sizhui shook his head. “We don’t even know where he is. He left Cloud Recesses more than a year ago.”
Their captor laughed. “Well, we all know he’ll come to us in order to rescue his darling Lan Zhan.”
Jingyi spat up his mouthful of blood. “You don’t get to call him that!”
Sizhui shook his head. “And I don’t think they’re… like that.”
The cultivator grinned. “We’ll see. Now, seal your spiritual energies, won’t you?”
Jingyi looked around the group. Shaochen nodded. As one, they sealed their cores away, sheathing their swords as they did so.
Their captor motioned for his men to take away their swords, and Jingyi sparked with the indignity of it all.
He then motioned to Hanguang-Jun. “Someone carry him,” he said, like Hanguang-Jun was a sack of potatoes rather than the Chief Cultivator.
Jingyi opened his mouth, but Sizhui glared at him.
In the end, it took six of them to carry Hanguang-Jun. Jingyi was fairly certain at least a third of the weight was his ornate robes, but it was harder to judge weight and difficulty without access to his normal spiritual energy.
They were taken to a small group of dwellings and shoved into one, without their swords or spiritual energy. The only good thing was that Hanguang-Jun was in there with them.
Jingyi only hoped he woke soon.
In the end, he woke as the dawn was rising over their prison. Sizhui quickly explained the situation. Jingyi worried over the green showing in the veins of Hanguang-Jun’s eyes.
“Wei Ying will come. It will be fine.”
And then he was unconscious again.
Great , Jingyi thought. Just great.
They were going to wait until Wei Wuxian, a recently-resurrected lunatic in a body with almost no spiritual energy, arrived, and hope that he could rescue them.
A few of the enemy cultivators came to check on them and pass them a large pot of almost-burnt congee. “They’ve finished clearing the corpses?” one of them asked as they started to walk away.
“Yes. Nothing with resentful energy around here.”
Jingyi’s heart sank. Wei Wuxian was going to be captured. There was no way this could end well.
The cultivators returned often over the next few days. Occasionally, they held up taunting pouches that they claimed held the antidote. Other times, they pointed knives at Hanguang-Jun’s prone body until one of the juniors reacted in fear and threw themselves in front of him.
Jingyi hated how they made him feel. Weak, and powerless, and useless.
And afraid.
He hated feeling afraid.
On the sunset of the third day, not quite long enough for Zewu-Jun and Cloud Recesses to have grown concerned, a different cultivator ran into the area they could see.
“He’s been spotted in the village!” he panted, and Jingyi’s heart plummeted down into his empty stomach. He exchanged a solemn glance with Sizhui.
Their last hope had been that Wei Wuxian would not come, and GusuLan cultivators would eventually come looking for them.
“He’ll take another day to work out where we are,” Shaochen said. Jingyi nodded. That was likely. They had another day for GusuLan to come.
He tried to calm the beating of his heart.
Once it got dark enough, there was nothing to do but sleep. They had long since learnt that if they tried to talk, someone would show up with glinting sharp steel.
Jingyi woke from a restless slumber to a change in the sound of the night. It took him a moment to realise what it was.
They were in the forest, but he could no longer hear the night noises of the animals there.
He wondered if it was an intimidation tactic.
Around him, the other juniors had all sat up too, looking out into the area they could see.
A few of their captors were running around, lighting massive braziers of wood. The flames leapt high into the air.
Sizhui shook his head. “They’re preparing for Wei-qianbei’s arrival.”
They all looked at each other.
This was it. This was the end.
Jingyi felt like crying. He was afraid. This was worse than all the bluster and threats. This was a preparation for an execution.
Suddenly, the flames turned green.
Beside Jingyi, Saochen whimpered. Jingyi placed a comforting (trembling) hand on his back, offering all the silent support he was capable of.
Someone screamed.
A cultivator on a sword arrived, landing in the middle of clearing. He sheathed his sword, stuck it into his belt, and twirled a flute in his fingers.
It was impossible to see features in the twisting green flames, but Jingyi knew that it had to be Wei Wuxian.
A cutting voice reached them across the clearing. “It took me two days to find a chunk of meteor iron, mould it to shape, and imbibe it with enough resentful energy, and I’ll even have to destroy it after we’re done here. What a waste of energy.”
Jingyi shivered. That was the same tone Wei Wuxian had used to say “Xue Yang must die.”
It clearly carried similar connotations now.
“If he’s hurt - if any of them are hurt - you will die in more pain than you thought possible.”
That wasn’t a threat, Jingyi thought. That was a promise.
He hadn’t thought that Wei Wuxian was capable of such a thing.
Saochen whimpered once more. “That’s why everyone was afraid of the Yiling Laozu,” he whispered.
Jingyi nodded. It… it made sense. The Yiling Laozu had torn men apart without regret. He had laid waste to armies of Wen cultivators.
It made sense that he could be terrifying like this.
Their captor laughed, the cruel laugh that Jingyi had grown to loathe very quickly. “He’s poisoned. I’m the only one with the antidote. And there’s nothing you can do, not even with your new amulet. There’s nothing here to control with resentful energy.”
Wei Wuxian laughed too. Somehow, it was even crueler. “I’m not interested in control. And didn’t you hear what I said? I brought my own resentful energy with me.”
He lifted Chenqing to his lips, and resentful energy poured out of the swirls of his robes. The ribbon in his hair danced, caught between the light of the green flames and the darkness of the resentful energy.
The music was melancholic and eerie. It cut through the night like Bichen cut through flesh. The melody he played was long and haunting, but nothing happened as he played.
Jingyi shivered. The Yiling Laozu was powerful, sure, but could he do anything with no corpses around?
And then he remembered.
On the guqin, the most powerful strokes took the most time, many repititions of notes and sliding glissandos. Hanguang-Jun could play for almost a full minute before releasing a deadly blast.
This could be like that. Musical cultivation was musical cultivation, after all.
Wei Wuxian took his flute from his lips and twirled it once more. The resentful energy around him had dissipated.
Jingyi scoffed. What a waste of time and effort, just taking out power and putting it back again! Was it meant to be a threat?
Their captor laughed once more. “See? Nothing. Now… if you would just do this one small thing for us -”
The screaming cut him off.
Out of the buildings around them, cultivators streamed out. They were all swinging their swords wildly, or clawing at their faces.
Even through the darkness and the distance, Jingyi could see the sharp smile on Wei Wuxian’s face. “It is funny how people react when shown their worst fears.”
Jingyi couldn’t look away. Shaochen hid his head in Jingyi’s shoulder, and Jingyi patted his back absently.
Someone was sobbing. Jingyi was fairly sure it wasn’t himself.
He watched as their tormentors slit their own throats, or gouged out their eyes, or killed their fellows. He watched as the ground turned damp with blood, as the metallic tang of it floated over to them, lying heavy in their noses and mouths.
The cultivators died without Wei Wuxian needing to lift his flute again.
When people die, they become corpses. When people die in pain and screaming, their corpses are filled with resentment.
Jingyi watched in horror, realising that Wei Wuxian had just turned thirty-odd men insane and suicidal to produce a group of almost-fierce-corpses. It wouldn’t take much to raise them all.
Wei Wuxian slipped Chenqing into his belt, and then spread his hands, as if to say look how easy that was? Imagine what more I could do.
There was one other person still standing. The ringleader. Even from a distance, he was shaking. He looked terrified.
He lit a small, flickering fire in one hand, and then held the antidote pouch over it. It didn’t catch immediately, but Jingyi’s heart still pounded loudly in his throat. Hanguang-Jun was still a prone body behind them.
Wei Wuxian shook his head. “I don’t think so!”
He clapped his hands, once, and the corpses littering the blood-slicked ground lifted to their feet, swaying towards the man who had once been their leader.
Wei Wuxian picked Chenqing up once more. He played a short, trilling phrase, and repeated it over and over.
One of the corpses plucked the bag from the man’s hands and tossed it to Wei Wuxian. The rest of them fell upon the man.
Jingyi looked away. He felt sick. Squelching noises still came from the area behind them, as did muffled screams.
He didn’t want to think about it.
Wei Wuxian knocked on the front of their prison.
Jingyi looked at him, trying to reconcile the image he had of Wei-qianbei with what he had just watched.
Wei Wuxian’s eyes were glowing, a deep, bright red. Resentful energy still swirled around him, likely centred around the new weapon he had mentioned making.
“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian breathed. “Where’s Lan Zhan?”
He no longer sounded like the Yiling Laozu. He sounded like Wei-qianbei, worried and compassionate and in love.
Jingyi watched as he used Suibian to smash open the locks, and then moved into the cell. All of the juniors pressed themselves up against the walls. There was a stench of vomit coming from somewhere.
Wei Wuxian flicked a talisman into the air, lighting up the small cell.
He then knelt down by the body of Hanguang-Jun. He tipped some of the herbs from the pouch into Hanguang-Jun’s mouth, and then sent a pulse of spiritual energy into his body. “Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan Lan Zhan Lan Zhan.”
Hanguang-Jun opened his eyes. “Wei Ying,” he said, and then smiled.
Jingyi could see the green receding from his veins even as he watched.
There were still squelching noises coming from outside.
Hanguang-Jun sat up. “Wei Ying, what did you do to the juniors?”
Wei Wuxian glanced around, and looked truly sorry at what he found. “I…”
Hanguang-Jun raised an eyebrow.
“I may have pulled… something similar to just before the bloodbath at Nightless City. And to that time in the Yiling supervisory office with Wen Chao.”
Hanguang-Jun sighed. “Wei Ying. They are children .”
Jingyi pricked at that. He was seventeen! Some of them in that group were a few years older, barely even juniors any more.
Wei Wuxian sighed. “Older than we were, in the beginning.”
Still, he turned to them. “I’m sorry you had to see that. It was cruel.”
Jingyi felt most of his fear melt away. Wei Wuxian’s eyes had faded back to their normal colour, and he was clutching Hanguang-Jun’s hand in both of his own.
“Wei Ying,” Hanguang-Jun said suddenly. “Are any of them left alive?”
Wei Wuxian tilted his head. “One. Just.”
“We will take him back to Cloud Recesses. I wish to know what he wanted with you.”
Wei Wuxian nodded, and then with an apologetic glance to the juniors, lifted Chenqing to his lips. He played a short phrase, and the awful squelching sounds stopped.
Jingyi suppressed a flinch at the sound of the flute. He understood, now, why the seniors had sometimes shivered when they heard a dizi in Cloud Recesses.
Wei Wuxian turned to leave the cell, but paused one more time. “I don’t normally do that,” he told them. “I was just… terrified. Terrified that they would have hurt Lan Zhan or one of you. And I was angry that they would even dare.”
Jingyi nodded. Shaochen had stopped shaking.
Sizhui looked around them all, met their determined glances. “I can’t say we won’t have nightmares,” he started, “but we still trust you, Wei-qianbei.”
Jingyi agreed. “And what we saw won’t leave here.”
The rest murmured their own agreement.
Wei Wuxian looked at them. He blinked.
Shaochen looked him in the eyes. “Thank you for rescuing us, Wei-qianbei!”
Wei Wuxian shook his head, covering his face with his hands. “Lans! You can’t just do that! It’s too much! Stop being so… thankful and genuine!”
“Wei Ying,” Hanguang-Jun said, quietly. “Thank you.”
Wei Wuxian glared at him, and then left. Jingyi heard sniffles. “He knows what that does to me!” Wei Wuxian complained, just within earshot. There was a brief phrase on the dizi, trampling footsteps for a few minutes, and then silence. With the bright light in the room and darkness outside - the fires had gone out with the red in Wei Wuxian’s eyes - Jingyi couldn’t see what was going on.
Hanguang-Jun sat up, unlocking their spiritual energies. Sizhui immediately started feeding energy back into him, stubbornly remaining even after being waved away.
It took a short while, but they managed to gather themselves before Wei Wuxian returned.
“Well done,” Hanguang-Jun told them. “You kept level heads. I would not be surprised if some of you never wanted to see Wei Ying again.”
Jingyi shook his head furiously. Now that it was over, now that Hanguang-Jun was back and Wei Wuxian was acting normal… “It was actually kinda cool!”
Hanguang-Jun blinked.
“You know,” Jingyi elaborated, “how he turned the flames green and commanded all that resentful energy. And how he saved us all without getting any of us or himself hurt!”
He sent a side glance to Sizhui, and then an almost-identical look toward Hanguang-Jun. “He seemed really desperate to get to you, Hanguang-Jun.”
Hanguang-Jun hummed. He did not sound displeased.
Wei Wuxian walked back in, carrying all their swords.
Jingyi had constantly been aware of the lack of his own sword, but it surprised him how much more at ease he felt once Bichen was back in Hanguang-Jun’s hands. There was something in knowing that their seniors would protect him that made the small, frightened part of him uncurl and loosen its grip on his heart.
Wei Wuxian was down a few layers of robes, dressed only in two. There was a bundle of cloth by the door.
Jingyi realised, with a slightly sick feeling, that that bundle was what was left of their captor. He didn’t…
He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He had hated the man, yes, and he wished he was dead.
Did he wish the evil cultivator was in, as Wei Wuxian had promised, more pain than he could ever imagine?
Not quite. He thought. He hoped.
It was a bit muddy and unclear
He wasn’t pleased the man was in that state, but he couldn’t begrudge Wei Wuxian what he had done either.
They made their way outside. A line of freshly-dug graves was in the place the battle had been. “All sent on,” Wei Wuxian reassured them. “No more fierce corpses from this lot.”
They all watched as Wei Wuxian splintered apart his new weapon, ripping it to shreds that he promised would be unusable. “I’ve done this before,” he reassured them.
Hanguang-Jun was looking at him worriedly. Jingyi was concerned too. Being a conduit for that much resentful energy would be damaging. He should have several days of rest and be played a few calming songs.
But it was Wei Wuxian, so that was unlikely.
They mounted their swords, slightly clumsily. They needed rest, but they wouldn’t be able to rest there.
Wei Wuxian hadn’t mounted. Sizhui was carrying the lump of robes that Jingyi was avoiding thinking about.
“Wei Ying,” Hanguang-Jun said, quietly. “Come back to Gusu with me?”
Wei Wuxian visibly brightened. “I’ve waited more than a year to hear that line, Lan Zhan!”
Hanguang-Jun looked down. “I was unaware that you wished to hear me say it.”
Wei Wuxian laughed, and it was light and cheerful. “Where in the world would I rather be than beside you?”
He didn’t unsheathe Suibian. Instead, he stepped up to balance on Bichen. Jingyi looked around the group of juniors.
Saochen rolled his eyes. Jingyi returned the gesture. Of course they’re going to be like this , they told each other through the small motions.
As if to prove to himself that he could tease the Yiling Laozu, Jingyi waited until they were high in the air to make his comment.
“If Ouyang Zizhen was here he’d be saying something about how romantic this all was.”
There were muted chuckles from the other Lan juniors. Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, almost fell off the sword. Hanguang-Jun wrapped his arms tightly around him. “Careful.”
“What?” Wei Wuxian choked out, once he had regained his footing. He was red in the face. Hanguang-Jun’s ears were tipped red.
“Oh, you know. Rushing here with a new powerful weapon to spill blood on the ground without mercy, just to save someone important to you. I’m sure Zizhen would try to put it in a poem but -”
“Please don’t,” Sizhui cut in. “No poetry. Please.”
Wei Wuxian looked like he was struggling for words. “I -”
Jingyi exchanged laughing glances with the other disciples.
So what? the glances said. He may be able to turn living men insane, but we can still make him blush and stutter.