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He thinks there was always a certain expectation of dying.
At least for him. At least at the end.
When he found himself entirely on his own, no one beside him, no way out. When all he had tried to do, to save, to protect had already turned to ashes in his very hands. Win or lose, still a defeat. Blood already spilled. A massacre either way.
A lost cause, no use in holding on to something already gone. So, he gives in, gives up. His life, everything he has, all of himself.
Just as he always has in life. Just as the world has proven again and again will never be enough.
Not if it’s him. Not in the end.
He should have known better than to hope for some measure of peace, even in death. Peace is not something he has been granted once in his life, why would it be granted to him in death. He should have known. The dead do not return that which they have once claimed. He should have known. He gives up, longs for an end. Instead, the yin energy that he carried with himself for so long, that he filled his entire self with is finally free to claim him fully.
He dies.
He dies and he falls and he breaks. And still he lives.
He does not know how. Neither does he care.
What difference does it make. There is no peace waiting for him either way.
Not for him. Not even in death.
+++
Wei Wuxian dies.
The cultivation world celebrates the death of their chosen adversary, all of the clans united against a chosen enemy. They do not pause at finding little of the claims that initially united them confirmed in the aftermath, the threat rumored into existence proven laughably false, but heads turning away quickly and with little thought.
They are victorious. They are righteous. They have triumphed over the one they themselves declared their enemy. They stood valiantly against that which they themselves declared unorthodox. They stand victorious above that which they themselves declared corrupt.
The commend themselves for staying away from the narrow, darkened path, for remaining on the well-trodden road, its path so much clearer, so much easier, gilded and bright and the company so much more numerous.
Surely, even the heavens themselves would laud them for their valiant fortitude against that which they themselves declared evil.
Once more, there is no justice for those unjustly dead, no judgment for those reveling in their triumph over something they claim to seek, no punishment for those who would commit injustice upon others for their own gain and laud themselves for the opposite.
Yet again, the dead are denied justice.
For, who would speak for them?
+++
He dies.
He dies. He falls. He breaks.
And the worlds breaks along with him.
There is no pain. Despite his gruesome end, no pain awaits him in this new existence. It is more than he hoped for. It’s more than enough.
It’s not that he is unaware of his remaining consciousness despite death, of time passing, of waking surrounded by soft brightness and heavenly light, of clear-ringing voices speaking to him, of power the likes of which he has never felt filling his body and mind and soul, of feeling warmed by the numbing coldness he held for so long.
Yet, what does it matter.
He grasped for those powers before, first for survival, then in hubris, lastly in revenge. He harnessed those powers before, first for righteousness but then lost himself to vengeance. He mastered those powers before, first out of love but then lost himself to hatred. He has tried so often, tried so much, but always lost in the end.
He does not want more power, never did.
He knows better than to think he will be given a choice.
He remains conscious but also not quite. Alive but not. Aware but not.
He exists. Despite his wishes otherwise. Yet, there is no pain. And he does not care to ask for more than that.
Time passes. Yet, also not.
Those of the heavenly realms do not adhere to mortal realities, after all.
By the time he opens his eyes again, the world has changed. Or at least, his world has.
His mind is darkness-hazed, the light of day irrelevant to the trailing paths of resentment stretching out before him, bright to his senses, the opposite of what they appear to any mortal’s eye. Like paths of light stretching out before him, some as thickened coils of shining brightness, some as glittering strands of wispy light, some as barely visible phantoms in the air, trailing to and fro, leading in all directions, winding their way towards him from too many places to count.
And him a nexus to it all.
He tugs on one, then another, his fingers brushing along a glittering trail of another’s furious pain, the echoing call of vengeance unfulfilled vibrating within his mind.
The call of the dead. Vengeance, it whispers, beckons, hopeful and helpless at the same time.
He follows.
He is physical, yet not. Too powerful to be anything but real, for all that he is no longer part of this world. He brushes away any thoughts of his own name, who he was, what he sought, all he lost.
He is and he isn’t. He was and he wasn’t.
He wishes for nothing less than to still be here, in this world. Another wish unfulfilled.
Trails of unsatisfied justice beckon for him.
There is one direction that calls to him before all others, the trails of yin energy so thickened by the multitudinous spirits crying in vengeance denied, almost a river in appearance, so broad they make for a clear path of darkness-hazed light overlaying reality. A river that also leads home. Or the closest thing to it he knows. Knew.
A place of broken bodies and broken spirits, of death and vengeance and fury unquenched, the darkest, brightest place in this world, a place entirely unsuited to the living for all that he did his best to prove differently.
He goes, follows the unending, heartbreakingly familiar calls.
His steps lag heavily, his body unfamiliar yet not, no longer simply of the living, no longer simply his own. He gave up all of himself. He did not think to consider whether anything might lay claim the moment he did.
It is an infinite journey to the center of what the world calls darkness. A single step is all it takes, a mere moment to reach the center of its brightness.
He takes no note of the disparity.
Home is where the heart is, a vague thought echoes. He brushes it aside, unwilling to entertain it or the lingering question whether the same is still true for a heart already broken.
He is greeted by death, long familiar, the oppressive amalgamation of endless resentment rejoicing in his return.
And yet, it is more than that. Spirits too familiar, spirits that did not use to reside here before, spirits of those he aimed to protect, dead for all that he died for them, now mere wisps of power, of glittering light, not quite demanding vengeance but echoing of justice denied, their presence almost soothing, just as accepting in death as they were in life.
Dead. Same as everyone else.
Dead. Yet alive in his domain.
Their spirits tuck themselves close as soon as they feel him near, their protector in death as he tried his best to be in life. He failed before but, in death, in living on, his power is far beyond that which the universe will allow to falter, woven into the very base of its fabric, inextricable, unending, connected to all.
He wants nothing but peace for those spirits who seek him out, who knew him once. He tugs on their resentment, takes it into himself, tucks it into the trailing brightness that shadows his steps, sends on those that wish to, carefully cups those close that wish to remain. Remain with him at least a little longer. Remain with him for the rest of eternity.
They deserve whichever peace they wish for. The peace they were denied. The peace he failed to give them in life.
They go. Almost all of them.
Years have passed. Decades, millennia. And, at the same time, merely a day, maybe an hour, a second at most.
He no longer cares for the passing of time. He is beyond time.
He settles into his once, once-again home, calls upon the souls that surround him, the resentment they carry. He deals in spirits, those who could have passed on but haven’t, who want to but can’t, who can but refuse to. He deals in souls of those no longer alive, same as him, but who linger in the world of the living anyway, same as him. He deals in resentment, in justice denied, in wishes of the dead unfulfilled.
Even once those he called his in life have already moved on, he continues, one spirit after another, tugging on their resentment, folding it into himself if they are willing to part with it, letting their spirits linger close to partake in future vengeance if they are not. Ghost after ghost, spirit after spirit, soul after soul, looking for one in particular, a specific spirit, the one he fears most and wishes to liberate more than any others. A tiny one. A young one. A fragile, barely formed soul. One he hopes might have gotten a quick, if not a merciful, death. One that should not yet hold any resentment of its own, too young to understand what the world owed and denied him, but who would have gotten caught here anyway, unable to move on if only for the thickened resentment that smothers all hope, all that is pure.
And yet, the wisp he searches for, the barely formed soul he loved so deeply the mere thought of its end threatens to shatter him even in this existence that is beyond death, is nowhere to be found.
A part of him, the last bit of his consciousness that lingers in the world of the living, that is still holding on after he should already be fully beyond any earthly matters, cannot help but keep searching for the child of his heart, the soul he claimed as his to protect before all others, the soul he failed beyond everyone else.
He does not find it. Nowhere within this brightened haze of impossible darkness. His son’s soul is missing.
His fury is unfathomable.
He spreads his awareness, lets his powers expand, a wave of resentment flooding outwards, across all, out and out and out, drowning the world, as he, for the first time since he didn’t die, reaches beyond the borders of this place that caught him once, twice, thrice, forevermore.
It is a wave of power heralding his fury, seeking for those responsible, unfathomable, unthinkable, world-destroying.
He does not expect the doubling echo he receives back. One he might still have hoped for, one he did not think might yet remain in this world. One close, one far away. One alive, one not quite.
The soul he is seeking is not too far away, his child still within the world of the living. Alive. His child lives, not beyond saving as he expected, as he feared, as his heart tore itself to pieces imagining.
He stumbles, not physically but still a step sideways, back into the realm he already left behind, no conscious thought as he wrenches himself into a physical presence as he hasn’t until now, onto the mortal plane once more, urged on desperately by those spirits he vowed to protect in life but failed so devastatingly, clamoring for the child they all loved and wished to protect beyond all else.
He finds his son sleeping, so very close to where he spent the past millennia cleansing any lingering souls, folding their resentment into himself to let them move on as they should have so long ago, promising to see to their vengeance in return.
His child sleeps, kept safe by nature’s own generous willingness to provide refuge.
He thanks her, fingers trailing over this refuge she offered, hears her tinkling laugh, as she, in turn, begins creeping back into the place he cleansed so very recently, the place she had been kept from for too long by powers under no one’s purview.
He grants her access gladly. In return for protecting his son, he does not mind sharing his realm.
He has other concerns.
He gazes upon his child, lost in the purity of his soul, still alive.
Behind him, the tread of familiar steps, heavy, dragging, the clinking of chains unaccompanied by anything that might herald the arrival of the living, a soul he himself bound to this world even before he gained the powers that allow for it.
“Wei-gongzi,” sounds from behind him, tremulous and familiar, grieving and joyous, a mirror to his own joy at finding someone remaining after all.
He hums, even as he crouches, eyes still on his son, his back covered by the only person still alive and willing to do so. He reaches out towards the child of his heart, watching his son’s eyes open, fever flushed cheeks and a gap toothed smile, tremulous and weaker than his fragile heart can bear, “Xian-gege.”
It is all he has longed for, all he wished for, all he needs. His son alive.
He died. He fell. He broke.
Turns out, not all of his world broke alongside him.
+++
The wave of resentment that swamps the world a mere two days after the Yiling Patriarch’s death reaches across the entire jianghu.
An endless wave, swamping all, drowning the sects and their claimed lands and all that lies well beyond. Impossible power flooding their world, darkness, resentment, fury, pressing down on any with a Core of their own, taking their breaths, squeezing their very hearts into stillness, into nothing.
It lasts for but a moment.
Before the resentment ebbs once more. There and gone again.
The clans, most of them barely on their way back to their sect homes after their victorious siege, scramble to turn around immediately, gathering their forces anew as they unite for another siege of the Burial Mounds, fearing Wei Wuxian’s return so soon after his end.
They do not expect to find themselves unable to check.
The Burial Mounds are closed to them.
There are no wards keeping them out, no sign of power refusing them entry. And yet the path is undeniably cut off, inaccessible, halting their very steps in place, refusing to let their feet touch onto the road that they took mere days ago on their chosen quest to defeat their chosen enemy.
There is no barrier to break, no protections to tear down. Yet, the boundary delimiting their access is irrefutable.
It will be years, decades even, before the cultivation world accepts that the Burial Mounds are no longer for the living to access, not for those carrying meritless righteousness on their tongues and greedy injustice in their hearts.
Reality broke at the command of the one who claimed the Burial Mounds as his domain long ago, before he ever had the power to do so. It remains, still part of the mortal plane but not, visible but untouchable. Same as its residents. Same as its ruler.
The cultivators cursing Wei Wuxian’s name at the bottom of the mountain do not yet know that none of them will ever be able to enter the Burial Mounds again, now a realm of its own, inaccessible to those who would denounce its sole god.
It is solely at his boon, at its ruler’s merciless, merciful heart that you may be granted passage into his realm.
+++
Wangji is one of the first among the cultivation world to realize the rise of a new god.
Maybe it is because, after his seclusion, he immediately begins to travel, rarely returning to what he once considered his home beyond the occasional request from his brother, and even those begin to peter out over the years.
He cannot forget what was wrought by the sects. Neither does he want to.
Wei Ying died.
Wangji knows there was little left of Wei Ying at the end. Everything he was, everything he fought for, everything he sought to stand for, torn to pieces and his ruination still solely blamed on him, as though the sects had no part in it, succeeding in turning him into exactly that which they claimed to want to defeat from the beginning.
If only Wangji had sought a solution earlier, if only he declared his belief in Wei Ying more strongly, if only Wangji had not hesitated. Yet, Wangji had been blind. He had not thought his intervention necessary, not on that level.
Wei Ying had not done anything at that point, not beyond standing against the Jin. Wangji thought justice would prevail and things might yet resolve themselves, even more so after visiting Wei Ying and finding the Wen settlement in the Burial Mounds filled with civilians merely intent on living peacefully.
Wangji had not thought to doubt his sect, his family, his brother.
And then, everything unraveled far too quickly for him to keep step, to still attempt turning opinions in Wei Ying’s favor. By the end, Wei Ying had still tried to stand with justice, even if he had been unable to still hold on to his principles, driven into a corner, choices forced upon him, atrocities committed for simple lack of other options.
If only Wangji had helped sooner. But things had seemed calm and Wangji could not help but hope to get to keep both, his belief in his sect as well as the man he has loved since they were teenagers.
Now, he has neither.
He had let his sect punish him to make them see, to make them pause and consider why he would think this issue important enough to refuse their stance. He had not been trying to advocate for Wei Ying’s innocence. But solely attempting to appeal to those he thought concerned with justice to consider why someone like Wei Ying would stand against them, why Wangji would willingly join him.
It had done nothing. His sect had punished him and then proceeded to join a slaughter so much worse than Wangji had feared it could be, leaving behind nothing.
When he heard of the siege, when he heard what his own sect had willingly participated in while he himself was bedbound, he immediately went to see for himself, unconcerned with his injuries. He needed to see, needed to find anyone who might have managed to survive after all.
He had found nothing but ashes. Not even bodies. No graves. Nothing beyond burned huts to mark the existence of the little settlement of refugees who had worked so diligently trying to carve out the smallest of places within this world for themselves. Unsuccessfully so.
Still, he had kept searching, desperate in his hope to find at least A-Yuan alive, Wei Ying’s child, thinking not even the sects in their self-righteous haze would fall so low as to murder a mere child. He was wrong.
A-Yuan was nowhere to be found.
Still, he searched, anywhere he could think of. He searched until his wounds forced him to his knees, his cultivation depleted and no longer able to keep his standing. He searched until Xiongzhang came to find him.
He remembers kneeling amongst the huts he knows the Wen remnants to have built so painstakingly when Xiongzhang came, resentment thick in the air with recently spilled blood. He still remembers the devastation on Xiongzhang’s face when Wangji asked him whether the allied sects found the army they had killed Wei Ying for supposedly building. He remembers Xiongzhang’s silence when Wangji asked him whether he and Shufu and the elders would be accepting punishment for aiding in the slaughter of innocents.
He and Xiongzhang have not spoken since, not truly, not beyond his brother’s empty pleas and Wangji’s silence. Wangji feels there is little he still has to say.
Lan An’s teachings have been forgotten, nowadays solely used to justify his own sect’s hypocrisy.
He thinks it might have been different if there had been any sort of reckoning in the aftermath, if the sects had been righteous in admitting they had not found under Wei Ying’s wards what they assumed they would, what they had been told before they marched on the Burial Mounds. It is the sects who revealed themselves as oath breakers, promising amnesty for the Wens in return for Wen Ning and Wen Qing, only to go back on their words as it suited them. If the sects, if Gusu Lan, had admitted as much in the aftermath, maybe Wangji could have forgiven if not forgotten, maybe he could still have believed in his sect. Now, he cannot.
He thinks it might have been different if he had any reason to stay, something to alleviate the burden on his heart and mind, to regard his sect a little more kindly.
Yet, there is not.
Wei Ying is dead. A-Yuan is dead.
The jianghu celebrates.
Wangji discovers that hatred does not require a war or the burning of his home to take root within his heart.
He leaves his sect, bows respectfully to Xiongzhang, Shufu, the elders, unconcerned with their protests as he formally unties the forehead ribbon that marks him as one of Lan An’s own descendants. He sees the devastation in Xiongzhang’s eyes, even as he bows to accept Wangji’s ribbon, regret in his eyes but nothing left to say between them.
The elders protest, Wangji cares none. Shufu’s eyes are furious as they meet his. “All of this just for that- that resentful cultivator, Wangji?!” he demands, voice furious.
Wangji’s disappointment grows. “Was the evil you saw in Wei Ying enough to justify the killing of the innocents he was protecting?” he returns.
A moment of ringing silence. Protests swell in its wake, yet none quite dare deny his words.
He turns back towards his brother, the leader of the sect he once called his own, bows low, if only in respect to the home he once had here. “Gusu Lan no longer holds the Lan An’s principles as Wangji wishes to uphold them. Wangji is no longer suited to this sect.”
He leaves.
Even years later, amongst the many regrets he carries within his heart and mind and memories, leaving his sect will not be one of them.
+++
Wangji travels.
And so he is one of the first who realizes the rise of this new god. A god worshipped by the common people. The god of the dead, some villages call him. The god of the in-between, others revere him as. The god of resentment. The god of justice. The god of cultivation, some even declare. If only because this god appears to do what the cultivation sects once swore they would.
No matter what he is called, his domain appears the same. He is the god of those forgotten, those without a voice to make their grievances heard, the god of those already dead but not yet passed on from the world of the living.
The common people revere him, road-side shrines and village temples built in his name all around the jianghu and even well beyond, anywhere Wangji travels to help the people who need it most but will never have the cultivation sects’ ear. Too far outside their territory, too small of a payment, too little reputation to be gained.
Petty reasons. Reasons this god appears to not care about in the least.
A traveling god.
A god who seeks out injustices and lays them to rest, no matter whose grievances might be calling for him, bringing justice and peace to those recently and long-since dead.
Every time Wangji comes across a village where the nighthunt that brought him here has already been taken care of by the elusive, revered god of the common people, Wangji makes sure to visit the local shrine built in the god’s name, gives thanks for the god’s graciousness in aiding those so easily forgotten.
It is the sort of god the common people deserve. It is the sort of god the jianghu would hate if ever they learned of his existence.
+++
With his many travels, maybe it is no wonder Wangji also hears of them.
Three travelers.
The heralds of the traveling god, they are called in places not yet visited by them. If only because, wherever the three of them go, the god of the dead will inevitably follow.
It’s different in places the three travelers have visited before. Those villages don’t call the three travelers heralds. Instead they speak of the god himself coming to stay at the local inn, sharing drink and stories with anyone in want of company.
An odd group.
A laughing god, a smiling corpse, a joyful child.
Wangji knows them without hearing their names.
Wei Ying lives, the knowledge burns within him. Somehow, Wei Ying is alive and so is A-Yuan, must be. For, if A-Yuan were not, the world would already have burned down around them in answer to Wei Ying’s wrath.
It gives him hope. It gives him a direction to set his feet in.
He travels in their wake whenever rumors give him the chance to. Which is not often. Clearly, Wei Ying has different means of traveling nowadays, disappearing from one village after laying yet more resentment to rest, only to appear at the entirely opposite end of the jianghu mere hours later.
Wangji does not mind.
He is content knowing that Wei Ying remains, that A-Yuan survived and remains with the person who would tear this world to pieces in order to keep him safe, that Wen Ning, somehow, remains with them both.
One day, Wangji thinks, maybe he will be lucky enough to meet Wei Ying again.
One day.
Someday.
Wei Ying lives on in this world and, for Wangji, the hope of someday is more than enough.