Chapter Text
CH 4: Welcome To My Darkside
"Cross my heart and hope to die,
Welcome to my darkside."
~ Neoni (from "Darkside")
The sun was about to set over Jianghu, creating a beautiful golden cascade across the darkening sky over Mo Village, a little village in between Yunmeng and Gusu.
Madame Mo was waiting impatiently for the group of cultivators from GusuLan, ecstatic at the prospect of getting something new to brag about for the next few years. Of course, she won’t be sending off her darling A-Yuan with them. Contrary to the popular belief in Jianghu, she didn’t think it wise to send a twelve year old off to try hocus-pocus in an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous place.
‘The Lan Daozhangs were very tardy though, how unseemly!’ Their missive had reached before them, stating that due to an emergency elsewhere they might get delayed, but have made alternate arrangements and will be sending an esteemed cultivator associated with YunmengJiang their way. ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘As long as they are willing to empty their pockets for a sad, cultivation-less village, I don’t care if they arrive in the dead of the night.’
Oh, how she regretted that thought.
He did show up in the dead of the night. At the hour when the night sky was the inkiest and the nocturnal sounds were the spookiest, he came in a palanquin with two servants waiting on him, another four carrying the palanquin and two more trumpeting the loudest trumpets she’d ever heard. By the time he had descended from the palanquin, there was a crowd collecting near Mo Manor, annoyed at the late night racket yet curious about the source. Tacking a smile to her face and cupping her sleeves into a bow, she approached the Daozhang that looked… quite young to have garnered any ‘esteem’.
“Greetings, Doazhang! Welcome to Mo Manor – I am Village Head Mo, we’re very honoured by your visit! But, aiyah- aren’t you quite late? Were you delayed because of something nearby?” She put on her best teary-eyed expression. “It’s quite an eerie night, please protect our poor village from demons!” She shook her sleeves with her repeated air kowtows, and predictably, the cultivator waved her up quickly, a pleasant smile on his face, so charming she forgot her upset at the late night hassle for a good few seconds.
“Mo Furen need not worry so much. I got delayed tying up sect business in Lotus Pier; apologies. Shall we chat inside?”
“Oh… Oh! Yes, yes- aiyah, forgive this one’s manners, please come in! A-Ding, make fresh tea! A-Tong, go get A-Yuan!”
Turning to him, she simpered sweetly, hand reaching out to catch his sleeve as she tittered, “Hehehe Daozhang, would you like pastries? If not for my age, I’d have made them myself!”
The sleeve escaped just past her painted fingernails to be tucked behind a lean, strong frame and fierce eyes despite the pretty smile in place. Her eyes goggled a little despite herself.
“I wouldn’t wish to burden you Furen, and what age? You look so young!”
She blinked, giggling genuinely at the flattery and ushered him along, with distance this time. But the man wouldn’t budge. At her questioningly glance, he tilted his chin at the peeping crowd muttering at the edges of the manor’s boundary. “Aren’t they going to join us, Furen?”
“Ahhh no need, no need! Here, I’ll send them away~” She waved to the lone guard at the gate, and he heaved a weary sigh, and set about shooing the crowd away.
“After you, Daozhang~”
The cultivator smiled, walking in with a snap of his fingers. She let out a startled yelp as the palanquin, the servants, the trumpets… all disappeared in a flash of black smoke.
“WOW…!” She whipped around to find her son gaping at the sight, eyes wide with ecstatic delight.
“Mo Ziyuan! Go, greet the Daozhang inside, bow properly! And fix that collar!”
She walks in to find her very eccentric guest sitting at the head of the seating arrangement, chatting politely with one of the younger servant girls and getting an extra seat set up for A-Yuan without her having to say it. She feels her heart flutter at the feeling of unease creeping in.
“Furen, please take a seat.“ He flourished a dark sleeve as he offered her a seat.
In her own living room.
In front of her easily-influenced son.
She felt the unease creep further up her throat, so she cleared it and batted her eyelashes at him. “Tell me Daozhang, what is your good name? How come GusuLan needed you to step in… are they dealing with something bigger in the cultivation world right now?”
The man took his time answering, smiling at the servant girl and humming at the first sip of their best tea, before turning to her with a smirk, “Ah, well- Let’s just say they found the trouble here too small for one of their top guns, hence I was sent to, ah, sieve the tea,” he wiggled fingers at himself, winking at A-Yuan who giggled at the joke.
Madame Mo laughed uncomfortably, suddenly hyper aware of the ears listening to this blatant derision.
She caught the cultivator watching her, realising her fidgeting was too transparent to him. She opened her mouth to speak, but her words died out as she saw a wisp of dark smoke curl around the chair A-Yuan sat in. She saw a flicker from the corner of her eyes and realised with deepening horror that a similar tendril was probably curling around her own seat.
“Feels horrible, doesn’t it?”
She flicks her gaze towards the man who, with utmost serenity, was steepening his tea – eyes not even looking up at his ‘victims’.
“I said , doesn’t it feel horrible, Mo Furen?” Blood red eyes locked onto hers, over one of her special fine-china teacups. “To be this helpless and controlled and mocked in your own home?”
Madame Mo just… gaped. She felt like the strength in her limbs had evaporated, a gust of wind could have toppled her over. She had not known such gripping fear in a very long time. The last time was probably…
“Do you remember your words, Mo Furen? The ones you said frequently to some people who once lived with you?”
Oh, Mo Furen couldn’t tell you her own name if you asked her. She still shook her head, eyes flitting between A-Yuan, her seat and the demon in her home.
“Rotten, evil things! You shouldn’t have entered our world, you freaks!”
Madame Mo gasped loudly, her chair toppling backwards as she stood up in horror at her own voice echoing around the living room. A-Yuan got frightened and started sniffling, running out to huddle behind a curtain.
“You don't belong here. You should never have been part of our family… If I catch wind of even one of you saying anything about being related to the Mo village, I’ll cut your tongues out!”
The demon in her house just lifted a lazy hand to point in the direction of the curtains. “Really, Mo Furen? You'd cut our tongues out?”
She just shrieked senselessly, hands fidgeting and head shaking violently to deny what vitriol her own voice was spewing out on loop. “No, no, never -”
A distant memory came crashing back to her.
Her eyes widened.
“W-who are you?!”
The man got up, silencing the chaos as he stood up. He gently righted the toppled seat back into place with a raised finger, not stopping till he was right in front of the terrified woman.
There were many things he could've said.
He could've said,
“I am Mó Xuanyu, Head Disciple of the Yiling Sect,
The first disciple of the Yiling Laozu,
In love with another brilliant cultivator, a man , and actually worthy of being called that;
A monster, a healer, a demonic cultivator famous for his arrays”
He could've said,
“I'm the son of the woman you and your husband abandoned,
Your sister’s son, your own nephew,
Someone who could've been a devout child and servant of your little subsect,
Someone you betrayed -”
…
He just leant in close, close enough to smell the ash and see the Kohl glimmer around his red eyes, and whispered,
“I'm the devil you forgot about.
But I didn't forget.”
He passed a little wave and a smile to A-Yuan – whose round eyes got rounder when a wisp of black smoke brought bright red candies to plop right into his palms – and walked out with his head held high.
The next morning, the servants found Madame Mo frantically trying to build a tomb for her half-sister’s son, who then got declared mad by the family physician and was assigned permanent bed-rest til she hopefully recovered from insanity.
—-------------------------
“Is it done?” Xue Yang asked, suckling on a candy Sizhui brought him from his trip someplace south.
“Yes, done.” Mo Xuanyu sighed softly, exhaling as he sat down next to the other.
“Aaaannd… how do you feel?” Xue Yang tried asking. He was getting pointers on being nicer from Wen Ning’s fiery girlfriend who dropped by sometimes.
Mo Xuanyu flicked a tracking talisman somewhere to his left, knowing that it would land on a tree as he looked out at the rising sun.
“Alive. I feel alive.”
And as the first rays of the sun hit his face, he felt powerful.
Free.
And absolutely demonic.