Chapter Text
Jiang Cheng has two birthmarks on his neck, just under his right ear, vertically stacked, about three finger widths apart.
Yu ZiYuan started putting foundation over the moles before Jiang Cheng was even old enough to remember. The only time he asked his mother why, she told him "These are unlucky, inauspicious, dangerous."
He thought his mother heartless and unloving at first, so eager to paint away her own child's imperfections. Later he finds out that his mother loved him enough never to have said the word 'cursed'.
He found out, as a child. An afternoon spent in easy laughter playing in the rivers with Wei WuXian and the neighbourhood children was suddenly shattered by a screech from the da-ma who lived down the street. She was there to pick up her child from their afternoon’s play, and she stares at Jiang Cheng’s neck when she gathers her son up with a frantic accusation of “cursed child!” and all but flees.
Jiang Cheng’s mother handed him a waterproof foundation at dinner that night.
At age nine, he finds out why two moles, vertically stacked, about three finger widths apart can terrify the neighbourhood auntie into never letting her child near Jiang Cheng again. The next district over produces a corpse drained of blood, with two puncture wounds on their neck, stacked, a few finger widths apart - similar to the distance between someone’s canines.
Mom gives him a look when the news hits the TV, and slips him some reading materials on vampires that night.
Vampires are not demons in the strictest sense. Only creatures that feed off resentful energy are demons, and vampires’ strict one tract diet does not include it. Technically, as an exorcist in training, Jiang Cheng never has to worry about vampires. Unless, of course, one is actively trying to kill his brother in front of him.
He's ten when he goes on his first night hunt, following the family legacy of exorcism. He’s spent half his life learning taoist talismans, and the past three years learning the tools of the craft. They are to naturalise some low level gui that are haunting a local well but of course Wei Ying gets himself attacked by a fucking vampire.
Every single text on the subject Jiang Cheng has ever read says vampires are rare - rarer still to have one go feral. Maybe there’s something to be said about Mom’s theory that Wei Ying is chaos incarnate.
Or maybe Jiang Cheng really is a cursed child-
Wei Ying is screeching at the murderous blur on him, his left arm is out in front of his face, using the arm guard to fend off the vamp’s reaching fingers and snapping jaw, his right is desperately trying to draw a fire talisman.
It’s not going to work, because vamps are not fucking flammable - Jiang Cheng has time to think, before making an extremely stupid decision.
The vamp’s fingers rip into Wei Ying’s metal arm guard as if it is soft butter, and the fire talisman aimed at the thing’s eyes only causes it to blink and snarl, but when Jiang Cheng draws the tip of his spirit dagger across his own forearm, the vamp freezes and snaps his attention to Jiang Cheng’s pouring blood like a hound tracking a rabbit.
He knows he has bare seconds to before the vampire is on him, so he doesn’t even bother properly sheathing the dagger, just drops it and begins to draw in blood on his forearm -
The vamp leaps, too fast- he’s not going to finish it -
-And the vampire falls short of him, one of his claws so close he hears his jacket rip under the downward swipe. Still on the ground, the vamp lets out a confused howl and twists around. Fucking stupid, stupid!- and brave Wei Ying has thrown his entire body weight on the vamp’s legs, a bright Strength talisman glowing on his forehead as he holds the vamp down scant centimetres away from ripping Jiang Cheng’s throat out.
It buys him enough seconds to finish his talisman, and to press his forearm into the struggling vamp’s face.
At the first gush of his blood in the vamp’s mouth, the vampire screams with the released energy.
He’s so shocked that it worked, that he has to be dragged away by Wei Ying. The two of them stumble into an alleyway and immediately seal the entrance with a spirit barrier so they can take a breath - the echoing screams of a vampire in pain still following them.
“You!” Jiang Cheng hisses between his gasps “Why did you do that? He could have kicked a hole through your body! Gods-”
“Me?” Wei Ying gives back, as he grabs onto Jiang Cheng’s shoulders and shakes him frantically “What about you? You let blood in front of a feral vampire? What the hell were you thinking?”
Before the angry protest on Jiang Cheng’s lips can escape, his brother has pulled him into a crushing embrace with a fervent whisper: “Don’t ever fucking do that again!”
Jiang Cheng can do nothing but hug him back.
“I hear the two young masters of YunMeng encountered and subdued a feral vampire on their first hunt.” Lan XiChen comments with a smile when they meet up with the Lan brothers the next month.
“Yes! My didi here really did all of the work!” Wei WuXian answers immediately, way too loud to be appropriate for the Lan’s halls that they are in, and Jiang Cheng nudges him hurriedly. Be courteous.
“Might I inquire how the Young Masters accomplished this incredible feat?”
“Wei Ying held him down and I drew a Yang energy gathering spell in blood and fed it to the vamp.” Jiang Cheng says, monotone, before Wei Ying could sprout a more outrageous version of their adventures.
Both Lan XiChen and Lan WangJi give them a hard stare. Lan XiChen’s coloured with shock, Lan WangJi as expressionless as ever.
“Young master Wei must have be very fast, to boost his own strength and hold down a feral vampire-” Jiang Cheng nods along enough to be polite, mind already on the week long training they are suppose to do in GuSu when Lan XiChen’s voice calling his own name snaps his attention back “-and young master Jiang is incredibly knowledgeable and resourceful. I have never heard of anyone subduing a vampire like that, in fact, I believe feral vampires have not been captured alive for centuries.”
“I just happen to know about vampires - anyways!” Jiang Cheng stammers, aware that Wei Ying is smirking beside him at his rising blush “I didn’t do anything great, vamps only go feral if they have too much yin energy so of course giving them yang energy balances it out, right?”
Lan XiChen looks unnecessarily delighted that Jiang Cheng is reluctantly talking vampire spiritual theory with him, and doesn’t seem to notice when Wei Ying loudly declares “Lan Zhan! Let’s go practice and leave these nerds here by themselves-” and drags away the younger Lan with Jiang Cheng’s desperate gaze following them.
He is going to kill Wei Ying - there’s no way for him to leave now without being impolite to the brightest exorcist of his generation, who is currently almost vibrating with tightly controlled excitement. “You’re right of course, young master Jiang, but no one has ever thought of infusing blood with Yang energy! Of course that’s due to people reluctance of letting a feral vampire near more blood but you have proven that if the energy is infused with blood, it can be more easier absorbed by the vampire and thus bring them back to -”
“Uh-” Jiang Cheng interrupts “I wasn’t really thinking that far ahead, I just didn’t want Wei Ying to get sucked dry.”
He winced, remembering that Lan rules forbid interrupting. However, Lan Xichen only smiles kindly.
"I must apologize, I frequently forget myself when discussing spiritual theory. I was simply overjoyed to find that young master Jiang has studied vampires too. Not many exorcists bother. And to be able to successfully deduce the best way of subduing one while under pressure is truly an amazing feat. "
Jiang Cheng shrugs, desperately looking for another subject to direct the conversation to. He didn’t learn about vampires because he was interested in them, after all. “Everything just happened to work out, that’s all. I have a natural tendency towards Yang energy anyways, is that not why Wei Ying and I are invited here?”
Once again, apparently bolstered by finding a conversation partner, Lan XiChen’s smile widens to show a hint of teeth. “Indeed! Uncle and Jiang xiansheng believe hunting the Wailing Ghost during the waning moon would yield the most amount of Yin energy to aid in developing our spiritual core-”
What an incredibly generous way of phrasing, Jiang Cheng thinks, once again nodding along just enough to be polite as Lan XiChen goes back into theory on the moon cycles’ influence on certain demons. This week only joint hunt is mostly for the benefit of Jiang Cheng, he knows that. The twin jades are already strong exorcists, their cores’ power were felt by Jiang Cheng as soon as he set foot into the same room. Likewise, Wei Ying, with a naturally balanced spiritual energy palette, can use the yin energy released from the demons to directly strengthen his cultivation, but Jiang Cheng, with a naturally Yang disposition, needs to constantly feed yin energy to his core for balance before he can attempt to further cultivate.
This hunt is for Jiang Cheng to even reach the same starting point as the rest of them. He’s neither blind nor stupid. No matter what pretty words Lan XiChen says about his ‘quick thinking’ and the lucky incident with the vamp a month prior, Jiang Cheng knows from the furrow of his mother’s brow when she takes his jingmai to test his spiritual energy to his father’s glances that always slide off of him - the lot he’s dealt at birth is unlucky, inauspicious. Cursed.
He's sixteen when his date kisses his neck and spits out the foundation that came off.
"Why?" they ask.
"Sunspots." he answers, trying for nonchalance
They laugh, warm and bright and tells him "My granny told me sunspots are just places a lover kissed you in the last life! It's nothing to be ashamed of."
It’s a beautiful sentiment. Unless, of course, you have birthmarks that look like a vampire had you for brunch.
He’s eighteen when he accepts a night hunt invitation with Wen Chao. Or rather, he accepts an invitation from Wen RuoHan who sends an extremely unconvincing condolence on the passing of his parents and offers Jiang Cheng the opportunity to hunt the great snake demon in Wen territories. Wen jia offers the immense yin energy of the snake demon for Jiang WanYin to replenish his spiritual core in this time of great turmoil, the email had said, and Jiang Cheng cannot decline such an open show of support, no matter his misgivings.
He should have just declined, politeness be damned, he laments two weeks later, deep in Wen territories, as he screams under Wen ZhuLiu’s hands, and his spiritual core is ripped to pieces inside him.
It takes Wei WuXian three more days to find him.