Work Text:
Notes from the desk of A. Sol Johnson, phD in historical cultivation with an emphasis on the mid-Tang Dynasty and Sunshot Campaign
IS WEI YING THE YILING PATRIARCH!!! DRAFT TWO is scribbled on a lime green post-it and affixed to the following two pages, stapled together:
“Wei Ying and the Yiling Patriarch: Complicated Identities in the Sunshot Campaign”
The incredible love between the renowned Hanguang-Jun (含光君, courtesy name: 蓝忘机, Lan Wangji) and his spouse Wei Ying(魏婴, only the likely pseudonymous 莫玄羽, Mo Xuanyu as a known name) has taken on near mythical status, even in English-speaking cultivation studies. Lan Wangji’s love poetry (the most famous of which is fen you yun, Split Peach Luck1) has been translated and studied world-wide, and Wei Ying’s work and writing on talismans changed that aspect of cultivation forever2.
But who was Wei Ying? The name was not registered in any clans, but indications show he had traditional cultivation training of some kind. Although Huangun-jun’s husband is most usually called “Wei Ying” in today’s academia due to Lan Wangji calling his husband this, there’s some speculation that the perhaps his birth name was Mo Xuanyu, and he begun to go by Wei Ying either as some a ruse or con against LWJ or perhaps just to distance himself from his childhood (and questionable status as one of Jin Guangshan’s many out-of-wedlock children).
The proposal of this thesis is that Wei Ying was, in fact, closer to his original name, and that the identity of Mo Xuanyu was assumed3. Furthermore, Wei Ying was one and the same with Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, gone missing and assumed dead some fifteen years before Wei Ying’s wedding to Lan Wangji.
Evidence is largely circumstantial, and a good deal of data has been lost. For example, Lotus Pier’s original records were lost in the burning of Lotus Pier c. 722 CE and the lost cultivation conference notes c. 7414. However, due to the Lan habit of fastidious record keeping, we know that Wei Wuxian was at the Cloud Recesses during the 721 CE interclan training and certainly met Lan Wangji at this time5. After Wei Wuxian’s apparent death in 727 CE6, Lan Wangji entered a well established period of isolation and then mourning7. Sandu Shengshou (三毒圣手, courtesy 江晚吟 Jiang Wanyin, birth name 江澄 Jiang Cheng), Wei Wuxian’s estranged sect brother, went through the next decade and a bit looking for and executing or perhaps rehabilitating suspected demonic cultivators8. Suspiciously, Mo Xuanyu is the last suspected demonic cultivator he attempts to apprehend9.
Another interesting bit of evidence is Wei Ying’s frequent depiction with a flute and black robes. This may be an affectation on Mo Xuanyu’s part, as some have suggested10, or perhaps something going on with Lan Wangji, as most of the portraits that survive are by his hand11.
The next page has been scribbled over in sharpie with the following handwritten notes in the margin:
Records of mo xuanyu and that even people mxy had previously met believed wy to be mxy; disguise?
No surviving letters or dialogue between wy and jc – alt communication methods? Notes in that one talisman paper suggest a lost message device by Wei Ying
What the FUCK was up with JC footing the bill of the wedding anyway? Recheck that book on Cultivation finances for refs
The last pages appear to be missing entirely. The back of both pages are covered it what might be talisman designs or perhaps simply doodles based on them.
1 the most famous of which is 分桃运, fen tao yun, Split Peach Luck. Trans. Torr Beans, 2017, Congress publishing. As an interesting note: 桃花运 taohua yun or “peach blossom luck” is good fortune in love, while 分桃 fen tao is “split/shared/bitten peach”, slang for a gay man. Lan Wangji called an erotic love poem to his husband, basically, “🍑👀💘”
2Listen i just need a fuckin foot note here about where u can find Wei Ying’s work. It’s goddamn everywhere. Throw a dart at a book about talisman history and you’ll get a citations haha
3see “The Journals of Wei Ying” trans. Furu Pines, 2008, S4 publishing, page 56, for some of Wei Ying’s writing on identity that suggest Mo Xuanyu was dead or missing and Wei Ying assumed his place.
4For more information see “The Lost Conference: The End of Jin Guangyao” by Netty B. Rye, Drift Publishing, 2021.
5From Cloud Recesses’ Punishment Logs, punishment #567, year of the Metal Monkey (approx. 721-722 CE), trans. Dream E. Waff for this paper: “On the tenth day of the Snake Month, guest disciple Wei Wuxian and disciplinary master Lan Wangji were set to kneel for (i need to recheck my sources i can’t remember what their punishment is omg)
6See “A Complete History of the Sunshot Campaign”, by 蓝秀燕 (Lan XiuYan) trans. Jam Polnaroff, Mods Press, 2020, in particular chapter 15, “The Death of the Yiling Patriarch”.
7 Ibid, chapter 16, “Immediate Aftermaths: The Lan”
8bid, chapter 17, “Immediate Aftermaths: The Jiang”
9Journal of Sandu Shengshou, 43rd year of Kaiyuan Era, from the excellent translation by 山猫 Shan Mao, Golden Publishing, 2016
10See “Mo Xuanyu: Unraveling the Mystery” by Tarry O. Voide, pg 1, Cultivation History Journal of America, 2013.
11 Ibid, pg. 5