Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Wei Wuxian wasn’t one to give empty threats. He wasn’t one to say he was going to do something and end up chickening out.

He had never lied while threatening someone, had never promised someone something and then denied whatever he promised, but that didn’t mean he sometimes betted for himself because he knew exactly what he was capable of.

For example, when he had cursed Wen Chao to always haunt him as a fierce ghoul, he had only done so because he had fully believed that he would survive the fall, and would be able to terrify the man by coming back alive.

But that wasn’t the case.

Wei Wuxian was sitting against the large rock wall that he had just fallen from, his hair in disarray as it pooled around him, red ribbon laying beside the blood-stained robes.

The sky was dark, black and grey swirling together like the Waterborn Abyss sitting in murky waters, and it did nothing for the oppressive, suffocating atmosphere that Wei Wuxian had been able to feel not even an hour before. The shadows cast by lack of sun helped with the shadows clawing for him, and it didn’t help with concealing the blood that was splattered around him.

Wei Wuxian didn’t breathe, and that was his first sign. Wei Wuxian didn’t blink, and that was his second.

He couldn’t feel anything besides fatigue, as if the lack of rest and lack of food had suddenly gotten to him, and while that was something completely normal for someone on the run, it only would’ve been something he believed it if he wasn’t currently staring right into his own eyes.

Wei Wuxian never realized how different his eyes were. They were a pale silver, with small grey flecks in them that he was sure used to shine whenever he laughed, and while he used to admire them in the reflection of Lotus Pier, he now couldn’t stand to see them.

But he had already tried closing them. They wouldn’t close, and even with the knowledge that this was his corpse, he didn’t want to touch it too much.

That’s right. His corpse.

Wei Wuxian was dead.

He had tried denying it upon first waking up with his body beside him, but the way his blood was splattered around the small trench, the way his face was half-concaved, he knew he was dead.

Had he accepted it? Not really. How does one casually come to terms with the fact that your heart no longer beat? That you would never be able to take another breath, would never be able to see your loved ones again?

Wei Wuxian paused. Was he exempt from that? He was always told that people who died moved on, but if no one knew he was dead, does that mean this is where ghosts who cannot move on go? They stay forever in the world of the living, but are never able to actually live?

Wei Wuxian… he couldn’t accept that. He had to get back to Jiang Cheng and help him win the war. He had to get back to Jiang Yanli and make sure she lives a happy life; even if it’s with that stupid peacock. He had to get back and-- and--

He needed to apologize to Madam Yu. He needed to thank Jiang Fengmian for taking him in, and needed to say goodbye to all of his Shidi’s that he had lost during Yunmeng’s massacre.

He couldn’t die here! He had things to do!

Well, he may already be dead, but that doesn’t mean he has to stay here. He can still help even though he’s dead, right?

Wei Wuxian’s eyes suddenly gleamed. He would just have to be like the ghost in his mother’s story!

His mother used to tell him a bedtime story about a Prince who was loved by all of his people. So loved, in fact, that when war came to the Prince’s kingdom, they happily laid their lives down, claiming it was an honor to die in his name. One of the soldiers who died couldn’t stand to see the Prince in such anguish as his kingdom perished, so he forced himself to stay in the real world, forced himself to appear human so he could protect the Prince.

They called him the Ghost King, as his body wasn’t breathing, his heart wasn’t beating, but he walked, talked, and spoke like a human. And when he was the strongest person in the lands, he went and he found the Prince, showed him that he could protect him, and they conquered the world together.

Or, as his mother would say, “They lived happily for the rest of their lives!”

Wei Wuxian would have to do what that Ghost King did. He would have to figure out how to make himself human, how to make his appearance match the one he had when he was alive, and he had to be careful about pretending he had a needy body.

Wei Wuxian slowly pushed himself off of his rear and crawled closer to his corpse, trying not to freak out as the sharp scent of metallic blood and fear clouded his nose. He quickly snatched the bell that was half smashed by his fall, and shoved himself away from the blood, moving away until he was sitting in front of the blank, burgundy dirt.

He needed to make a list. Obviously, at his number one, he needed to get out of that place. His handwriting was shaky, his hand feeling weaker and weaker the longer he held his bell, but he refused to think that it was repelling him.

Not his bell. Not Yunmeng. Please . 

Before he could get out though, he needed to fall into the motions of doing things he didn’t need to. He needed to pretend to eat-- could this corporeal body even stomach real food? Real liquids?-- and he needed to pretend to feel exhaustion.

Currently, he felt exhausted, but upon touching his bell, he found that it wasn’t an exhaustion by not sleeping; it was an exhaustion that he had felt only momentarily, when his golden core was freshly cut out of his chest.

He was weak. He lacked any kind of spiritual power, any kind of strength to try and push himself to his feet. If he was able to become like the Ghost King, he wouldn't ever feel exhaustion since his body was basically an illusion.

Wei Wuxian sighed, sitting back on his heels to stare at his pathetically small list of things he needed to do, but before he could try and think of more to add, the shadows clinging to the rocks and the rusted dirt surged up, consolidating into thick whirlwinds of resentment and pain that looked almost exactly the same as the swirling sky, and they shot towards where his corpse was laying.

In a split second, Wei Wuxian understood what was going to happen. The resentful energy could feel his rage, hatred, and utter acceptance of what had happened, could feel his thirst to get back at Wen Chao, and it was reacting in the only way it could.

It was intent on making Wei Wuxian’s body a fierce corpse, where it would almost automatically take off to try and murder Wen Chao, but Wei Wuxian couldn’t let that happen.

“The Ghost was the strongest in the world,” Cangse Sanren had said softly. “But do you know why?”

“Why?” Wei Wuxian had breathed, hanging on every word his mother spoke.

“Because he only has one weakness, and that is the ashes from his body.” She had leaned in closer. “Do you know where his ashes are?”

Wei Wuxian had also leaned closer. “Where?”

“He gave them to the Prince.”  

The Ghost’s only weakness was his ashes, and that came from his body.

If Wei Wuxian’s body was destroyed, he would be completely destroyed.

He instantly lunged at them, kicking and scratching like that would stop something untouchable, but whenever his hand slapped a tendril of resentment, it would shatter like a cup Madam Yu would throw at the wall, and energy would surge into his meridians.

When they were no longer clawing at him, and simply slunk back into their alcoves to glower at him like rats hiding under the floorboard, Wei Wuxian sat back on his heels and looked down at his hands.

They were stained red with blood, and that alone told Wei Wuxian he hadn’t been there for a while. It was cool in the Burial Mounds, nothing like the heat of Yunmeng, and blood took about three minutes to half an hour depending on how much blood was spilled.

If Wei Wuxian’s blood was still wet, that meant he had been dead for an hour, or even less.

Believing he would be able to catch up to Wen Chao was childish, so instead, Wei Wuxian bared his teeth at the shadows that were peering at him from their alcoves. 

The Ghost King in his mother’s stories had slaughtered his way through a mountain to become as powerful as he was, but Wei Wuxian didn’t have a mountain to slaughter through. He had a mountain of dead creatures, but if his haunch was right, it would be no different.

With a newfound hope, a new way to get out of this hellhole, Wei Wuxian sprang from his spot besides his corpse and shoved his hand into the thick shadows.

He didn’t even need to attack them. He simply touched them, and they shattered with horrific screams, broke as easily as porcelain and surged into Wei Wuxian’s meridians like spiritual cultivation, making him shudder at how familiar it was, how wrong it was.

Spiritual energy was warm, soothing, and he sloughed through meridians like warm honey, thick and ever present. It was like a warm hug, promised safety and promised that everything was going to be okay so long as you took it slow and breathed . 

Resentful energy wasn’t like that. It surged through his meridians like a waterfall, cold and sharp, quick to snap and quick to attack. It was like a weapon, sharp and poised, begging you to just swing .

Wei Wuxian had to breathe slowly for a couple of minutes as the cool energy rolled around his body, exploring what it could and couldn’t do, and when it finally settled down, it was with a rush of energy.

Wei Wuxian stared, wide-eyed at the shadows that quivered in front of him, as if trying to figure out what he had done, but it was too late.

He knew exactly what to do, knew exactly what he was doing.

He was consuming the resentful energy like the Ghost King, and that notion sent pure giddiness through his system.

If the Ghost King could get stronger like this, so could Wei Wuxian. He could regain a semi-physical body and help Jiang Cheng bring Yunmeng Jiang from the ashes. He would tear Wen Ruohan down from his throne and make him watch as Wei Wuxian destroys everything he’s ever worked for.

He clenched his hands into a fist, imagining that he was holding Wen Ruohan’s entire life in his hands, and then exhaled sharply when he caught sight of the sharp white that was his skin.

Wei Wuxian hadn’t exactly been tanned, but he hadn’t been mourning robes white. His knuckles weren’t even flushed with blood-- seeing as he didn’t have any-- and his resemblance to a painting was uncanny.

He would have to say it was due to the lack of sunlight in Burial Mounds or something-- there was no human way to be this pale and not be on your deathbed. Hell, even the Lans, up in their recluse mountain shrouded in mist had more color than this.

No one had ever survived the Burial Mounds before, which was exactly why it was so popular for murderers to dump fresh corpses. Everyone knew that once someone went inside, they went insane and died, and that's precisely why no one would go inside to check for lost loved ones.

But that also meant no one could say Wei Wuxian shouldn’t be so pale; no one had ever lived to tell what the inside of Burial Mounds was like. He could lie all he wanted, because he was the sole ‘survivor’.

Blood didn’t pump through his veins, so it couldn’t burn with rage or insanity. Human emotions didn’t thrum through his body, so he couldn’t lose himself to the overwhelming feeling of death. A golden core didn’t sit in his chest, so he couldn’t be influenced by the clashing energies and start hallucinating everything he ever feared, before getting ambushed by a herd of fierce corpses and dying.

He was already dead, so it should be easy for him to leave pretty much clear-headed, and that would help with convincing everyone he wasn’t lying. No one would believe a raging psycho, but if he was calm...

But that brought him back to his first problem. He had to consume more resentful energy to get stronger, but he knew if he ventured out of this spot-- he was going to call it his, since his blood was the one that was splattered everywhere-- then anything could happen upon his corpse, and if it was destroyed, he would really be dead.

But he didn’t know how the Ghost in his mother’s story preserved his ashes-- or even his body. All Wei Wuxian knew was that he died, and almost a thousand years later, gave his ashes to the Prince.

Wei Wuxian glanced back at his corpse worriedly. He wouldn't have to wait eight hundred years, would he?

He--

He would live forever now, wouldn’t he?

Wei Wuxian’s legs went weak, and he sunk to the ground, covering his mouth as the urge to hurl grew in his stomach.

The Ghost waited eight hundred years to see his Prince again, but that alone-- that alone was proof that Wei Wuxian would be here forever, watching as his children grew old and died off, watching as his grandchildren frolicked with whatever the land would become after the war--

Wei Wuxian shook his head sharply. No, if he took a lover-- oh my god, could he have kids? Would he ever be able to marry? He was a ghost born from the urge to tear down and consume , but it was also because of his urge to protect , and that shouldn't change anything right? He should surely be able to-- Wei Wuxian had to grip his chin tighter, trying to ground himself, but he felt nothing. There was not a touch of the twinging pain that usually allowed him to focus.

So instead, he shakily pushed himself to his feet and touched the wall-- it was rough to the touch, but that was all he could feel. He knew it was probably cool, but he couldn’t feel it-- and then slowly stumbled to the other side, brushing his fingers against the rough stone. He repeated this a few times until his brain was no longer splitting itself open trying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

As he was pacing, he allowed himself to continue thinking, that way he was somewhat calmer.

If he didn’t take a lover, but Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli died from old age-- after living a long, happy life-- he could just destroy his ashes and-- and what? And join them in the afterlife? Did ghosts even have afterlifes? It didn’t matter. Once he was certain there was nothing left on the earth that he wanted to protect, he would destroy his ashes and-- and truly die.

Wei Wuxian nodded once. His mind was made up, but he was already planning like he was going to survive this. Although he had all of the ambition for it, he didn’t have the knowledge, and that would just get him killed.

He shuffled over to his mini-list and kicked the dirt to cover it. If he needed to write down lists of things he needed to remember-- pretend to be human, take baths, eat, drink-- he would never remember them, or someone would find that list, and then he would need to think of excuses on why he had “REMEMBER: YOU NEED TO MOVE YOUR CHEST AND IMITATE BREATHING” on a poster in his room, which was something that he didn’t want to stress over.

First thing first, he needed to make sure his body wasn’t going to be attacked when he was away-- he knew at some point that he was going to have to venture away from his little spot to consume more energy-- but he had no qiankun pouch.

Wei Wuxian paused. He had blank talismans in his sleeves, and he could try and create some sort of stasis talisman, but those didn’t often work for very long-- and they had never been used on corpses before.

Wei Wuxian didn’t have much of a choice. He spun on his heel and stalked back to his body, nose curling as the metallic scent of blood stabbed into his skull, but he just rolled the body over, intent on grabbing the talismans and not touching it again, but the sight of his face so disfigured, so deformed, made him whirl around and vomit bile.

He may know that he was perfectly “alive”, but it was still extremely unsettling to see his body so destroyed. 

With his head turned away, Wei Wuxian shuddered as he reached into the damp robes and pulled out equally damp talisman paper slips.

He didn’t look over as he turned his body back over, but he did curse loudly upon seeing the blood-soaked paper.

There was no salvaging it, it was thoroughly stained red.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Wei Wuxian grabbed his bell, intent on scraping the talisman into existence, only to cry out and drop the bell at the sharp shock that shot up his arm.

He cradled his hand close to his chest, wide-eyed as he stared at the harmless bell sitting innocently in the dirt, and then stared down at his stinging fingers, as if Madam Yu had whipped him across the hand with a wooden plank.

Pure depression welled up in his throat at the thought of his own bell seeing him as a resentful creature, a threat , and despite him trying to swallow it down, his head started throbbing sharply.

He brushed his smarting fingers across his cheeks, but they came back dry.

So he could feel the pain of crying, but he couldn’t cry. Wonderful.

Wei Wuxian allowed himself to curl into a small ball, allowed himself to feel overwhelmed with everything that had happened in such a short amount of time, and he cried without tears.

First the massacre of Yunmeng Jiang, then Jiang Cheng getting captured by Wen Chao and having his golden core destroyed, then Wei Wuxian giving his Golden Core to Jiang Cheng-- only to be captured by Wen Chao himself and tossed into the Burial Mounds.

And then he died , came back as a ghost, got rejected by his own clarity bell, and was currently trying to figure out how he was going to pretend to be a living, breathing human.

He was overwhelmed, okay? This was all so sudden, everything happening in a course of a week , and he just wanted to be back in Yunmeng with his Shijie, wished he would just wake up and this be a terrible nightmare, wished his Shijie would hug him and tell him everything was going to be alright--

The sound of a fierce corpse shattering from an internal explosion was something that would haunt Wei Wuxian for the rest of his life. It wasn’t a wet sound, because the corpse was long dead, but it did resemble the sound of when a dog tore into fresh skin.

Wei Wuxian shuddered and pulled his hand away from where he had just shoved it through the corpse’s chest, staring disgustedly at the torn pieces of flesh that stuck to the rocks like butterflies to a flower.

That’s what it gets, Wei Wuxian thought to himself, trying to sneak up on me while I’m having a moment.

He didn’t try and pick up his bell again, too afraid of the stinging pain that meant the bell no longer saw him as a cultivator, but a resentful creature, and instead used his nail to scrape the blood off of the paper until it held the characters that made up a stasis talisman.

He was just originally going to add a protection character onto it, but that protection usually meant repelling resentful creatures, and if Wei Wuxian was classified as a resentful creature by his own clarity bell, then that meant the talisman would also repel him.

So he just slapped the talisman onto his corpse’s back and waited for the blue glow to form, only to sigh when it didn’t. It apparently only worked if you had a proper talisman, and that filled Wei Wuxian with worry. There would be no place for him to search for the paper talismans were made of, so how was he going to protect his body?

Was he supposed to carry it over his shoulder and be nomadic? Stay in whatever cave suited him and fight off any shadow or corpse that tries to attack him?

He snorted at that thought, and reached over to peel the talisman off of the corpse, but it didn’t come off. He frowned, and tried tugging harder.

It didn't budge.

Something clicked in Wei Wuxian’s mind, and despite the thought of it being absolutely absurd, he pushed himself to stand upright and stepped away from his corpse, barely breathing as he stooped to pick up a rock, and he gently tossed the rock at his corpse.

Before it could land on his body, the talisman lit up a bright gold and the rock was flung back at him with three times the speed he had tossed it at, and Wei Wuxian stumbled back, eyes wide.

The rock shooting straight through his chest was quite uncomfortable, like a cool breeze of someone walking over his grave, but it didn’t bring him pain, and it also solidified the belief that he just created the strongest stasis talisman in existence.

It was so strongly fixed on the idea of keeping Wei Wuxian’s body in the state it currently was that it wouldn’t even let a rock touch it, because that would change it too much.

There was no time for him to rejoice. Now that he had a way to protect his body, he had to get back to consuming the resentment, and that thought thrilled him.

It felt similar to being promised a free meal at your favorite shop. Wei Wuxian could feel his meridians aching in the same way his stomach used to growl for food, and he wasn’t one to ignore the urge to eat.

He spun on his heel and left the small trench after one last glance at his corpse, and was immediately assaulted with the stench of death.

At least in his small alcove the stench was all his, but this was everyone’s, and it smelled like Wei Wuxian’s last minutes-- desperate, furious, and vengeful.

He didn’t have to wait long before another fierce corpse was stumbling down a narrow path, and another was following, two more from the other side, and even more across from him.

His space was at the intersection of multiple crisscrossing paths, and despite the land opening up to his far left, he felt trapped. There was nowhere to hide if he was overwhelmed, and he instinctively reached to his waist to draw Suibian, only to freeze when his hand grasped empty air.

That’s right. Dead. No Suibian.

The corpse lunged at him, and he dodged on instinct, whirling around the second one and ducking to swipe the legs out from another, before jumping away and crouching to the ground, surveying the way they screeched and clawed at each other.

He didn’t have Suibian, so he needed to be extremely cautious about how he went about attacking them. If they bit him, his skin would tear quicker than paper, and then he wouldn’t be able to--

Consume. He didn’t need to dodge them.

A grin tore at his mouth, and he sprang out of his crouch with his hand outstretched, that way it tore through the corpse’s chest before it could even touch him, and the black tendrils of resentment shot up his arm, as if trying to attack him, but after feeling how the resentment ran through Wei Wuxian’s veins, it simply sunk into his body, further powering him.

Based on how easily the resentment gave up on their current hosts, Wei Wuxian realized as he tore through the small group, it was most likely kill or be killed here. The resentment could feel that Wei Wuxian was stronger than the fierce corpses that were attacking him, so they abandoned the corpses and went to Wei Wuxian.

He kicked the last corpse off of his body and shook his hand with disgust, scraps of rotting flesh and clothing sticking to his hand like wet rice. He stomped over to the wall and scraped his hand across it so he didn't have to touch it with his other hand.

The rock was rough, and cool.

Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows shot up. It was already working, his consumption of resentment was already giving him a semi-humanoid body, and it was working quite quick too!

That was amazing! At this rate, Wei Wuxian wouldn’t need to worry about taking too long then; he would be out very, very soon.

Again, as if sensing his rising joy, the shadows shot out at him, as if desperate to grasp even a sliver of the emotion they haven’t felt in so long, but Wei Wuxian simply stepped to the side and snatched it away from his face, and then watched silently as it writhed in his hand, slowly fading as the energy sunk into his skin.

He wouldn’t get a break at this point. They were intent on getting rid of him because of how easily he was ridding of them, but Wei Wuxian wasn’t complaining. It simply meant that he would get back to Jiang Cheng quicker.

Wei Wuxian bared his teeth at the thought of Jiang Cheng coming down from the random mountain Wei Wuxian led him to, standing in front of the rock and waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting for someone who would never come back. Leaving him absolutely abandoned --

No. Wei Wuxian wouldn't abandon Jiang Cheng like that. No one deserved to wait in one place, desperately hanging onto a sliver of hope that the person who left them there would come back like they promised , only to have someone come over to you, hug you, whisper, “They’re never coming back. You need to move on.”

Wei Wuxian needed to assure Jiang Cheng that he didn’t leave him, that he didn’t purposely abandon him. Wei Wuxian--

Was crying without tears again,

He snarled angrily and kicked the wall, glowering at the fact that it didn’t bring him any pain.

Was he even human at this point? Humans felt pain, it was their warning that they were pushing themselves too much, that they were in danger of hurting themselves more than they already had, but those who couldn’t feel pain were called monsters . They didn’t know when they were at their limit, so they could push through anything without fear of dying. They could charge into battle with an arrow in between their eyes and not even know it.

“Whatever,” he breathed, the first time he had spoken with his ghostly voice box, and he was surprised to say that it came out almost completely similar to his original voice. The only difference was that it was smoother, deeper, and held an air of arrogance that he didn’t do on purpose.

He cleared his throat, “Did you miss me?”

His voice came out like smooth honey, the end tilting up in a playful but dangerous edge, and he grinned. If he could master however he was speaking, he would be able to scare the shit out of Wen Chao. He tried again, this time trying to put his bloodlust into his voice, “Did you miss me?”

Well.

That was a hint of a growl.

Wei Wuxian slapped his hands to his face, and it was hot despite him knowing that he couldn’t blush.

He had never spoken like that before! He had never sounded like that before! What was with his voice suddenly sounding- sounding like it belonged in a high-class brothel?!

He just wouldn’t speak then. He would forever be silent that way he didn't implode from pure embarrassment.

Or.

Or he could use it.

He instantly shook his head. No, no, it was no good having a seductive voice if the person of your interest wasn’t interested in you. It was no good if Wei Wuxian could sound like smooth honey if all he was going to get was, “Boring.”

Wei Wuxian’s face flamed, and he dropped to his knees, trying to cover his face.

So.

Then…

He liked-

Wei Wuxian slammed his hand into the ground, face burning red, “NO!”

He didn’t. Absolutely not. He didn’t fancy those stupidly bright--

NO! Bad Wei Ying, bad cultivator! He didn’t dream about--

Wei Wuxian dropped onto the floor, slapping his hands to his face like it would stop burning.

Oh god, but he did . He absolutely liked Lan Wangji, adored those stupidly bright amber eyes that glowed golden in the sunlight, he didn't dream about pressing the man down and--but he did, he did , he wanted that porcelain mask to shatter under his fingers, wanted tears of ecstasy to make those gold eyes shine--

And for once, Wei Wuxian was absolutely thrilled that a fierce corpse interrupted him with its friends.

“I like him!” He cried as he smashed a corpse’s head in, shrieking incoherent but obviously embarrassed noises as he kicked another corpse’s chest, and then quickly tore the resentment from them. “I FUCKING LIKE HIM!”

Wei Wuxian slumped down with a low whine, wishing he could bury a whole and never come out. He really thought about trying to woo Lan Wangji with his voice--

Wei Wuxian sobered up instantly. Lan Wangji could never, ever know he was a ghost. Although the Lans communicated with the souls of the dead all the time, they were pure souls simply because they couldn’t move on. Wei Wuxian was a Ghost, not a soul. Ghosts were obviously resentful, because he fed on resentment in order to gain a humanoid body to trick everyone into thinking he was human.

He would be exorcised in a split second.

He frowned. Could he be exorcized? Ghosts only had to worry about their ashes, but back at that time, his mother said there were no ways to exorcize ghosts.

He sighed, despite knowing that he actually hadn’t been breathing before-- and wasn’t that such a trip? Knowing he should be suffocating but not because he didn’t need to breathe-- and cast a look to the sky.

It was darkening, the grey clouds turning an ominous purple and black as the sun fell down the sky, and despite not feeling tired, he was still used to ‘nighttime means danger’, and silently shuffled back into his alcove, where he sat up against the wall and stared at the wall across from him.

He wanted to go home. But he needed to stay. He didn’t want to be here, but it would help him in the long run.

Wei Wuxian turned his head to look at the destroyed clarity bell that he hadn’t touched since it repelled him. In a way, that was the most painful thing that had happened to him yet.

The clarity bell was the only way to tell a real Jiang cultivator to a phony, and Wei Wuxian’s didn’t want him anymore. In a way, it was Yunmeng Jiang rejecting him because he no longer had a heart that beat. He was a Ghost, and if the clarity bell didn’t accept him, would Jiang Cheng? Would Jiang Yanli?

Jiang Yanli.

He had told her the story of the Ghost and Prince.

He sat up straight, mind whirling. She was older than him when he told her the story, and since she was female, her memory should be better than his, right? Disregarding the fact that everyone had a better memory than him, Jiang Yanli remembered almost everything from when they were children. If he could just ask her to tell him the story, maybe as a bedtime story? He would know the Ghost’s name and be able to ask--

To ask what? How he preserved his body? The Ghost obviously didn’t since he gave his ashes to the Prince, but maybe he could give pointers?

Wei Wuxian scoffed and slumped against the wall, suddenly feeling extremely lost. He knew next to nothing about the Ghost’s name except that it had something to do with flowers.

Or was that the Prince?

Wei Wuxian didn’t know, one of them had Hua in their name, one of them had-- an official title dealing with flowers. His mother had used red and white to help Wei Wuxian distinguish the two, but he didn’t know who was who.

Red could be the Ghost King because he was dead, red could be the Prince because of his fallen kingdom. White could be the Prince because he was innocent, white could be the Ghost King because his intentions were pure. The Ghost King could have flowers, the Prince could have flowers--

Wei Wuxian cursed his stupid lack of memory. 

His Shijie would know. His Shijie knew everything. If only he could ask her.

The sound of wind howling made Wei Wuxian jump, and he whirled around to face the entrance, but nothing came charging at him. When he was certain there wasn’t a sneak attack, he turned his head to the other side of the trench, making sure his corpse was still intact.

There was nothing wrong with it. Even the blood around it was still a bright red, as if it was freshly spilled--

Wei Wuxian blinked. “Blood.”

There was a bell ringing in his mind, but whenever he tried to look directly at it, it faded away, a word just outside of his grasp.

“Blood what?”

The memory sunk deeper away from him the harder he thought about it, and he stared blankly at the wall as he tried to recall something that wasn’t there. 

A woman’s laugh echoed in the back of his mind, and his eyes shot back to his corpse.

Blood. Blood what? Bloody ground? Bloody ribbon? Bloody robes?

The laugh faded, and Wei Wuxian felt frustration well up inside him, “Blood what?!”

Was the bell in his surroundings? Was it with the corpse? Or was it abandoned in a--

In a puddle of blood.

Wei Wuxian stared at the bell sitting harmlessly in the red puddle, the dark black sky reflected in the shiny metal that had yet to be splattered with red.

Puddle. 

Ground.

Evaporation. 

Sky. 

Rain.

“Blood rain.” 

One was donned in all red, and one was donned in all white.

Red Rain?

It clicked, and Wei Wuxian was whispering, “Crimson Rain,” Like a damned man finding his sole savior.

And the bell stopped ringing, taking the woman’s laugh away from Wei Wuxian’s mind, which made his face start burning in a way that he knew meant he would be crying if he had tear ducts.

His name was Crimson Rain, but Wei Wuxian knew that wasn’t all there was to it. There was no way a two-word title was given to someone; Wei Wuxian was missing two words, but the only thing he could think about was flowers.

Something with damned flowers. But he couldn't remember it.

Extreme frustration welled up inside Wei Wuxian, and with it, came an urge he was fairly new to. It started with an itch in his fingertips, and then it spread into his palm, wrist, and shoulders, so his entire arm was tingling and shaking. 

It was an itch that could only be quelled with blood, but unfortunately, there was no blood to spill around here, so he would have to make due with corpses.

He pushed himself to his feet, stooping to snatch a stray rock, which he tossed at his corpse to make sure the talisman was still active, and was promptly left shuddering from the feeling of having something shoot straight through his body.

He felt no fatigue and no urge to sleep, so he assumed it would be fine for him to leave his area and go consume more energy.

Wei Wuxian paused as he left his area, noticing that there wasn’t a touch of resentful energy around him. He had fully claimed this area as his, and nothing would dare trespass out of fear of being destroyed like all of the others that went in and never came back out. Unbeknownst to Wei Wuxian, it became the place not to go inside of the place not to go.

Wei Wuxian’s spot was absolutely off-limits unless you wanted to die a second time; and forever.

If he claimed the entirety of Burial Mounds though, made it habitable for people again, he would be entirely entitled to the land, right? He was the one who cleansed the land, therefore it was his?

It was an extremely helpful place to fall back upon if he was ever found out to be a Ghost; he could simply set up talismans for protection and keep every spiritual cultivator out, and then he wouldn’t have to worry about being-- about being attacked? He didn’t have to worry about dying, but the scorn he would face, the disgust that would paint Jiang Cheng’s face like Madam Yu’s-- he wouldn't be able to handle it.

So this was a good place to claim as his. No one would be able to say it was theirs if he was the one to cleanse it, because one Wei Wuxian wouldn’t let them, and two, they would get majorly scorned for robbing someone else’s nest.

But first, he needed to get stronger.

Wei Wuxian allowed that bloodlusting itch to crawl up his shoulders and through his entire body, allowed the shadows inside his meridians to scream consume destroy kill take burn! until it was drowning out everything else, and Wei Wuxian took off.

He was a whirlwind to every fierce corpse he came across, tearing and shredding and ripping and consuming before the corpse could even realize it was being attacked, and he was taking in resentful energy like a spoiled young master demanding for more food.

His eyes sharpened through his haze of bloodlust, subconsciously tracking where he was going so he didn’t get lost, and he couldn’t help wondering how strong the sun’s resentment was.

Would it boil and burn when Wei Wuxian shot it out of the sky, or would it simmer down in utter acceptance when it shattered into a million pieces in his palm? How much would he be able to consume before his meridians burned from the inside out, unable to handle the amount of burning energy?

Wei Wuxian didn’t know, but he was eager to find out.

He would consume and slaughter throughout the Burial Mounds, and he would become as strong as the Ghost King in his mother’s stories. He would stand beside Jiang Cheng and fight for him until the boy threw him out, and he would shoot down the sun.

He bared his teeth in a maniacal grin, his eyes burning a bright red as he tore through the fierce corpses like a lion through lambs, and solidified his list.

Wen Chao was in for a rude awakening when Wei Wuxian was able to get out of the Burial Mounds, because he was first on the list.