Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Torture me to death if you can. The more cruel, the better. After I die, I’ll definitely become a feral ghost and haunt the QishanWen Clan day and night for all eternity!”

‘All that glib-talking and laughing into someone’s face,’ Wen Zhuliu thought to himself, ‘and all he’s going to get is a slower death.’

He shook his head, deciding then and there it’s something the lad brought upon himself. He was loyal to one man only, whose orders were absolute and would be followed resolutely. Even if it meant baby-sitting the ridiculous young son of said man.

Apparently, ‘slower death’ in Wen Chao’s limited dictionary meant the Burial Mounds. Just what did his mother eat to produce such a child, Wen Zhuliu is glad he didn’t know and never will find out. They were at a height where there was more mist than rock visible. Wen Zhuliu was sure that if they were a few feet lower, they would see corpses sticking out of the debris - the resentful energy around them was no joke. Whichever way they looked, desolation seemed to have manifested itself into the very landscape, so deeply that even a battle hardened cultivator like himself felt uneasy. 

He refocused his attention onto his charge, still busy goading the YunmengJiang head disciple. ‘What a mockery that title is now ’, he reminded himself and corrected himself mentally to address the boy as Wei Wuxian only henceforth.

“...and if a living man enters this place, he will lose his body and soul. It is impossible for him to get out.” Wen Chao leaned closer to Wei Wuxian. “Let’s see for how long you’re able to keep your humour.” And with a rough shove, Wei Wuxian went tumbling into the abyss. 

And Wen Zhuliu, if not for his religious non-consumption of alcohol when on duty, would have believed himself hallucinating when he saw the wisps of mist suddenly come alive. They were white-grey, fluffy cloudlings one moment, then forming a giant, demonic mouth the next. Wang Lingjiao screeched, Wen er-Gongzi frantically yelped at him to do something, and the few disciples with them seemed to enter fight-or-flight mode. But despite all that chaos, they all couldn’t help but stare for a few more horrid seconds as the mouth opened and ingested Wei Wuxian alive.

‘He certainly won’t be alive after that,’ Wen Zhuliu thought grimly.

He counted to ten, and then guided their little entourage back to their supervisory office. Yu Ziyuan was dead. He owed nobody any more favours, so there’s nothing more he could do for anyone.

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Meanwhile, the demonic mist face (well, if a face only had a mouth) seemed to be trying to chew Wei Wuxian. Now, it didn’t do that everytime a soul came tumbling into its perimeter. But this one… it was different. It seemed delicious like the others, of course, but also somehow medicinal, and the spirits that made up that face didn’t understand why. So it was sheer curiosity that led to the chewing, dissatisfied rumbling, and eventual spitting of a very rumpled and disoriented Wei Wuxian onto a mound that had more debris than bones. 

The structureless face seemed to stare at Wei Wuxian. Naturally, the poor guy stared right back. There were noises suddenly, and WWX sat up straighter, trying to locate the source without sudden moves, lest he tempt the mist for another gobble. He strained his ears, but the sound just echoed strangely in discordant notes, as though he was underwater. He raised a hand to whack his ears, just in case, when he had to clutch one ear tightly as it exploded with noise.

“...get into his ears…”

“I’m in!”

“Me too!”

“You idiots, he’s clutching just one, some of you get into the other!”

“Oh- Okay…”

And Wei Wuxian had to clutch his other ear.

“Ay! Filthy brat. Can you understand the language we speak in?”

“Uh, yes- if you’re talking to me,” Wei Wuxian muttered weakly.

Some of the noise receded, and he sighed in relief in spite of himself.

“What’s your name? Where are you from?”

Wei Wuxian understood he was having an unnatural case of volatile luck, and whether he actually got out of here alive all depended on his next words. So he put his hands together, got on his knees and gave the smartest bow he could muster with an aching body, missing core and bloody clothes. 

“Greetings to the benevolent spirit masters here. This unworthy one is Wei Wuxian, of the YunmengJiang Sect.”

“Aiyah, A-Yue, he’s from your old sect!”

A voice piped up suddenly, and there was a weird, sharp rumble and the noises receded a bit more.

“Hm. Wei Wuxian! Your life has been forfeit from the moment you entered the miasma that envelops the Bixia Battlefields, or what you mortals now call the Burial Mounds.”

There was a brief lull, before The Voice, as WWX mentally labelled it, boomed in his head again.

“We old ones have been here for centuries. We have never seen a spirit like yours. We went over your memories, we know everything about you.”

Another short span of silence. Wei Wuxian tried his best not to squirm.

“... You are not like the ones that follow the dark, yet you don’t treat the darkness like an enemy. You see… potential.”

It was not a question, so Wei Wuxian stayed quiet.

“...Do you want revenge?”  

And the background noise of the other spirits suddenly gained volume… and more resentment . The somewhat bumbling, friendly-sounding spirits were emanating ominous energy, as if gleeful at the chance to wreck potential havoc. And Wei Wuxian was feeling it all. Centuries of built up rage, misery, anguish and bloodlust, all swirling around him, and as he realised a moment later, within him too. There was very little malice and malevolence, but still sufficient enough for him to recognize its distinct flavour in that mess. 

“Ah… but I no longer have a Golden Core. I have yet to find a way to overcome that, only then can I even dare to think of revenge.” 

There was a loud short sound, almost like a bark of laughter. “We shall help.” Wei Wuxian felt his eyes go wide, felt a pang of gratitude welling up, before his broken meridians, hanging on to his consciousness by a thread, finally gave out and he fell into a heap with his head swimming.

The last thing he registered was a low whisper, almost an afterthought. “After all… We have been without a general for too long.” And then the dark embraced him.

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“... A-Jie, A-Jie please!”

“Shut up! Who is your A-Jie? A whore like you should never have been part of our family, you took A-Die’s kindness and went too far with it!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I was wrong, I was wrong! But please, why Xuanyu? He- he’s young, he even got to cultivate! You could keep him, no? He’ll bring you pride, he’ll behave well, won’t you A-Yu? He- “

Mo Xuanyu shuddered when his aunt whirled around to slap his mother hard across the face. He clutched his mother’s robe the best he could, what with that absolute hag having a death grip on each of them as she all but marched them to… gods knew where. 

“That fancy cultivator lover of yours has not been around for years! It’s going to be a decade, and I would have thought of it, really… but with the war looming over Jianghu, we can’t bring attention to ourselves for housing any relations to any cultivator! And this brat, he’s been nothing but a pain in the ass - always bothering the servants, and what boy and supposed seed of a cultivator steals makeup to put on himself?! My A-Yuan is young now, but he doesn’t need an influence like that when he’s older… You need to leave. It was lucky that business got us this far from home, I don’t intend to carry you two-” she yanked at them both, her grip making both mother and son let out whimpers. “-and your illnesses back with me. Yiling is where you’ll be now; if I catch wind of even one of you saying anything about being related to the Mo village, I’ll cut your tongues out!” 

She practically hissed out the last part, and Mo Xuanyu had to wonder why this woman thought they took any pride in being affiliated with them. He’d seen stray dogs in the village have more self-respect than he and his mother got to keep among supposed blood relatives. His mother was, by blood and favour, Second Madame Mo. Yet he’d never seen her receive her due respect, and was himself supposed to keep low. His fist curled in spite of himself.

“A-Jie, I understand, but Xuanyu is a child, he can be hidden easily. He’ll learn to keep quiet, he’ll not-” Another painful yank, and Mo Xuanyu did not know what possessed him then, but he felt the need to speak. “L-leave it, A-Niang. We’ll live here. I’ll f-find work in a tavern, we can- we can make some money that way.”

Madam Mo sneered at him, and Mo Xuanyu straightened his spine, tried his best to not flinch at any eye-contact and flexed his non-existent jawline, hoping he achieved something, if only for his mother’s sake. Besides, he had decided very early in life - he’d go where A-Niang was happy, and Mo Manor had never fit the bill, as far as he was concerned.

She stopped walking abruptly, causing the other two to lose their balance. “A-Jie, what-” Madame Mo just grabbed her by the chin and turned her head to look towards the sky. Both sisters goggled, and Mo Xuanyu looked in that direction, only for his breath to get caught in his throat.

There was a huge hurricane heading their way… and it wasn’t uprooting anything. That was strange. Until Mo Xuanyu realised it was coming for them . ‘For me,’ he thought faintly, as his mind went blank and his eyes couldn’t stay open, his mother’s sobbing and Madame Mo screeching bloody murder about demons was the last thing he heard before he fell asleep.

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Wei Wuxian blinked his eyes open blearily. Two sets of red-rimmed eyes peered down at him, equal parts concerned and wary. He shot up, nearly banging his head on the stone he was leant against. He rubbed his head with a hiss, taking another peek at his company. A young woman… and a boy? He felt more than saw some tendrils of dark energy poke his injuries, and he remembered. “WHA- Why are you two in the Burial Mounds?! Wait- who are you two?” He saw how startled those two looked and remembered himself. “Apologies, Guniang, Xiao Gongzi,” he gave a steady bow, noticing his injuries were healed, nearly gone. “Pardon my lack of manners, this one is Wei Ying, courtesy Wuxian. May I know how you ended up here?”

The woman relaxed quite a bit, but the boy still looked suspicious. Still, he did a little bow and Wei Wuxian felt a little pang of something when he noticed bruises on his forearms and wrists. “I- I am Mo Xuanyu, this is my mother, Mo Yan. We were- we were walking to find a new home in Yiling, when a big dark cloud shot at me, here,” he pointed at his dantian, “And I fainted. When I woke up, A-Niang and I were both in this cave next to you.” 

“I wasn’t very conscious throughout the ordeal either, Wei Gongzi,” Lady Mo shared sheepishly, her voice gentle and lulling. “But I remember you riding upon that black cloud and saving us.” 

‘ Uh- What the heck- I saved them?! ’ Wei Wuxian was hard pressed to remember how he saved himself, much less others. He heard the woman’s voice start up again and brought back his focus.

“Are you… Gongzi, are you a cultivator?” 

Wei Wuxian nodded slowly, sadly. “I am from YunmengJiang- well, I was. People don’t really leave the Burial Mounds, so I suppose my remaining family can consider me dead.” Then he caught sight of their faces, “Aiyah, I don’t mean to say I’m not going to get you two out of here!” He gave his best grin, and Mo Xuanyu cracked a shy smile. 

“Awake?”

Wei Wuxian tensed for a second, before realising who it was. “Greetings to the spirits, yes, I am. Very kind of you to care for me… but was it necessary to drag these two here?” 

“We needed a source of spiritual energy to seal off your damaged meridians, you are out of danger thanks to this young boy. They were also in distress, so we channelled ourselves through you to retrieve them to safety. You can send them back as you see fit.”

Wei Wuxian opened his mouth, only to not get a word in. “Um- sorry, pardon, but c-can’t Wei Gongzi let us stay h-here? We don’t have anywhere to go, and A-Niang is h-hurt, so she can’t travel much.”

Wei Wuxian stared a little at the boy. “...Can you hear these spirits, Xuanyu?”

“Uh… yes? Am I not supposed to? I’m sorry Xuanyu didn’t mean to eavesdrop!” He clutched at his own arms a little, a reflex that did not go unnoticed.

“No, no, it’s not that you weren’t supposed to…” Wei Wuxian stood up a little and stretched, brow furrowed as his mind ran a mile a minute. “You shouldn’t be able to so easily. Tell me, Mo Furen - you clearly aren’t a cultivator, is your husband one?”

Mother and son looked at each other, something anguished passing between them. Again, Wei Wuxian felt the need to correct his socially unfit slighting. “I don’t want to know his identity at all, simply if our Xiao Gongzi here gets his cultivation from his father, or if he is the first cultivator in his family.”

“Okay, first of all, Mo Furen is my sister, I’m a servant’s daughter. Calling me Mo Yan or even Jiejie would be acceptable. About my… well, A-Yu’s father is a cultivator, a famous one at that. He,” she hesitated, fidgeting a bit before speaking even more quietly. ”He did not marry me. I had Xuanyu out of wedlock, and he has not seen his father since he was 4 years old.”

Wei Wuxian bowed his head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Mo Da-jie.. Hm…” He put a hand on his chin, before asking a few more questions - about his progress in spiritual cultivation so far, how many years he’d been training, asked him to demonstrate some sword forms if he knew them, and some light-hearted inquiries into their life so far and plans for the future. Based on the answers he received, and some of his own observations, he figured that this must be the ugly side of one of Jin Guangshan’s fabled trysts. She looked so young, not much older than him… that old fart really had no shame. And the child, bright-eyed, curious, intelligent in ways that the orthodoxical cultivation gentry has not yet evolved to appreciate.

He was increasingly concerned about Jiang Cheng and Yanli Shijie’s safety of course, but at present, his heart went out to the two who reminded him of his own plight in their own, different ways.

At some point, Mo Xuanyu’s stomach rumbled, and he clutched it sheepishly. “Aiyah, is Xiao Gongzi hungry? Let me see if I can find something to eat.” But even as he said the words, the smile on his face was quickly fading on taking stock of the cave they were in, how the expanse outside the cave was barren land, the widespread, corpse-riddled mounds of sand and gravel and no living tree or creature in sight as far as the naked eye could see. There was some form of water fountain further inside the cave, but it looked like blood from this distance and he didn’t want to confirm his suspicions, lest he disrupt the fragile camaraderie he had with his new companions.

He turned around, an apology on his lips, when he saw Maiden Mo spreading out a humble meal of buns and vegetable wontons out of the little bag she’d been clutching the whole time. “This is all I could grab before we hit the road, Wei Gongzi - hope you’d oblige us by sharing it.” 

Wei Wuxian smiled a genuine smile for the first time in a week, the hollow in his dantian not feeling as empty. “Of course, Mo Da-jie. This is a feast! And please, call me A-Xian.”


A week of scrounging the Burial Mounds revealed some clean water sources, a small thicket of fig trees at the Western outskirts, and some small game to hunt for meat. A stream that seemed close to drying was being used temporarily as a bathing space. 

(“You have got to let me step out for food! What will I feed those two?”
“You’re not getting out till you are able to work with the dark without being consumed by it. Figure it out.”

“Aiyah, Lao Gui’er! You’re very distrustful of me, is this how you’ll treat me now?”

He was made to crash into an old tree trunk to let the point hit home.)

Another two weeks, and the spirits had begun condensing into something more defined than a cloud or a hurricane. Something that clung to Wei Wuxian like a robe as he strolled around taking stock of the bodies left unburied - pulling out as many as he could and giving them as decent a burial as was possible for him. 

Almost two months into living like this, with Wei Wuxian helping Mo Xuanyu cultivate - primarily by making him un-learn all the bad habits he had absorbed from some phoney cultivation manuals while strengthening his fundamentals and teaching him basic talismans - and Maiden Mo making sure the boys stayed clean and fed, Wei Wuxian had a breakthrough. He waited till the mother and son were asleep before stepping out of the corner of the cave he slept in to head to a clearing in the middle of the Burial Mounds. He raised his hand, a sharp bone-piece in the other, nicking his finger with it to let a small drop hit the sand. His lips parted. “Arise.”

His eyes glowed red, and the air around him came alive, and for the first time, he could see the spirits in the Burial Mounds, feel them convalesce and pulse all across the land, his raised hand an anchor to their motions. “Settle.” Almost immediately, it all subsided; so quickly that the serenity made him question briefly if he was dreaming. He repeated the commands, framed a few more, and some more, till all he had to do was raise a finger and the spirits would move the way he wanted them to. They were syncing up, the spirits and he, like a man to his new blade. Who was the blade here was something he did not have a direct answer to. He knew he was as much a medium to them as they were to him. It was mutual respect that brought them this far after all.

The first bit of morning light showed up on the horizon, and Wei Wuxian decided to call it a day. He turned around, and nearly shot out of his skin on finding two sets of eyes watching him. 

Maiden Mo had a grim cheer on her face, as though the thought of this being so different from any party trick someone had shown her before was a closure she never knew she needed, whereas little Xuanyu had stars in his eyes, like the 12-year-old boy had just found his first hero in life; an expression Wei Wuxian was all too familiar with. Merely thinking of some of his younger sect brothers brought tears to his eyes, so he shoved that thought away. He had more pressing concerns - how was he to explain this madness to these two?

Ever the brazen one, Wei Wuxian gave a shy, tired grin, and to his secret relief Mo Xuanyu came rushing at him for a hug, not a single ounce of fear in his eyes at the dark energy practically dripping off of him.

“Xian-ge, that was amazing! Your eyes looked a little red and the spirits were all listening to you!” 

Wei Wuxian ruffled his messy ponytail. ”Ahh, thank you, A-Yu, but you mustn't be too impressed. This is the kind of demonic cultivation that can seriously injure others. Cultivators with a core like yours are supposed to fight against such methods, not use them. I’m using it because I got hurt very badly and am now useless with a sword.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly.

Mo Xuanyu frowned and after a moment of serious thought, shook his head fervently. “No. I don’t think that the cultivation I learn is any better. The Sects all use this kind of cultivation, yet even they can go to war. It is also a way to fight and hurt others. They have used it only to bully me, and since I started late, I’m never going to be good enough for my father to want me anyway.”

Wei Wuxian startled, but the boy wasn’t done. “No Gege, I know you’ll praise Xuanyu and say I’m doing good, but remember that Shixiong from the Jin Sect I told you about? Who came to tutor me? He said A-Die would send for me once he reported how well I was doing. He didn’t send anyone for 8 years, that must mean I wasn’t doing so well, right? Even if you fix my mistakes, I will never be the same as others.”

He turned around to look at his mother, who gave him a little smile and nod. “I will always believe in you, son.” Smiling back, he turned back around to face Wei Wuxian, who absently noticed that the boy had lost most of his stutter this past month, and his mother had stopped speaking under her breath. He wasn’t the only one who had changed, then. 

The boy then proceeded to deliver the second biggest heart-attack Wei Wuxian had ever had. 

“I’m going to learn Demonic Cultivation.”

Wei Wuxian is not ashamed to admit he screeched. “Mo Xuanyu! Do you hear yourself, child? Aiyah, just because this Gege saved you doesn’t mean you have to follow every stupid thing I do, because trust me when I say, I do plenty of those! Not every cultivator you meet is going to rush to your aid, so you must not incur their wrath by being the very thing they don’t understand!” He took a breath, trying to channel his inner, very deeply buried Lan Wangji-like sensibilities. “Besides it is dangerous - cultivators lose their morals when they dabble in these arts, they don’t know how to treat others around them, they- ” 

“Pardon me. You say that… And yet, you have been nothing but a wonderful gentleman to us, Wuxian-di.” Maiden Mo said, as she came up to put a hand on Mo Xuanyu’s shoulder. Her lovely smile dimmed to a bitter little thing.” My sister had all but discarded us when you and the spirit-cloud found us. She- she had…” 

“She called us freaks.” Mo Xuanyu finished for her, flecks of gold in his grey eyes standing out in the first rays of the rising sun. “She has called us many things for being af- affly- affiliated with the cultivators. But this was the first time she saw a bad side of it, and she ran away calling us, or well- me , the devil.”

Wei Wuxian sighed. “A-Yu, I understand. I have had people scold me for being too different, so I know how bad it can feel. The best we can do is prove them wrong and follow a righteous path.”

Mo Xuanyu, bless his young heart, cocked an eyebrow at him. “...So you mean to say that not surrendering to the spirits simply because you can’t use your sword anymore is something to hate about you? It’s not- what did you say? Righteous?”

Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes. He didn’t want to do this, but… “If you don’t want to be a righteous cultivator, how do you plan to win the cultivation world’s respect and let them treat your mother as an equal to everybody else’s mother, if not better? How will you make your aunt regret her words?”

Mo Xuanyu curled his hands into fists.

“...They will never see her as just my mother. A-Die will always be brought up, since he’s so important. As for my aunt… Since she thinks the worst of us, why would I not be exactly that? Isn’t it good to live upto expectations, if not exceed them? I think… I don’t want it any other way, as far as she is concerned.”

Wei Wuxian let out his longest sigh yet, before turning to Maiden Mo.

“Ancestors above… he’s about to hit puberty isn’t he?” She giggled wordlessly, patting Xuanyu on the head.

“ Uh- what is that?”

“Bane of my existence,” Wei Wuxian muttered, but then sobered up to look at them both. 

“Mo Guniang, I understand if you wish to abide by whatever Xuanyu decides… but you. Mo Xuanyu. Have you thought this through? I can still teach you whatever tricks I know, without you taking this very dangerous path.”

“I have decided, Xian-ge. I am going to follow you from today. I will no longer be Mo Xuanyu of Mo Manor. I will be Mo Xuanyu, Disciple of Wei Wuxian. I’m going to learn Demonic cultivation, and become the demon they said I was.”

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