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Chapter Text

It was a beautiful day to be a fox.

Wei Ying rolled around in the grass, nine bushy tails wriggling along with the rest of him as he basked in the sensation of damp grass against the fur of his back while the sun shone down merrily to warm his fluffy white belly. He leisurely stretched all four legs and yawned wide.

Once he decided he was done stretching, he nimbly rolled onto his paws. His fox legs lengthened, his back arched and kept arching as his shape shimmered, shifted, until a young man turned his face to the sun and flashed it a decidedly foxlike grin.

He brushed earth and grass off his rough-hewn peasant robes, held in shades of rust-red not quite unlike his vulpine coat. His hair was a glossy black, waves of hair bound into a ponytail with a red ribbon, and his voice was melodic as he took to humming a song while he cut through the thick of the forest, leaving the clearing ever farther behind.

It was a song he had picked up after one too many cups of wine – and barely remembered for the same reason. Something about dragons and jiaoren and shooting down the sun. He snorted even as he hummed what he remembered of the text and filled up the gaps with whatever nonsense happened to amuse him. The entire song was nonsense, anyway. As if any of their kind cared which human called himself Chief Cultivator, or any of their silly conflicts. Human struggles were for humans, and Wei Ying had certainly not concerned himself with the Sunshot Campaign or that silly chunk of underpowered metal that had the humans squabbling like a murder of crow spirits.

No, he’d had better things to do around that time, such as take long naps in the sun, find delicious food, or unlock the next stage in his cultivation as he reached the age of 100 years. While any huli jing could take the appearance of a beautiful young woman at half this age, everybody knew to watch out for beautiful young women who had appeared out of nowhere. Rumors of huli jing never took long to follow. Even more damning, his skill used to be iffy in fully hiding his fox features when he was trying to appear as human.

After his latest breakthrough, Wei Ying was no longer bound to such restrictions. Now he could pass as a perfectly round-eared, blunt-fingered, tail-less human of whatever sort he liked. He was quite fond of his current appearance, the face of a man in his twenties, perfectly unremarkable in seeking luck or labor outside his hometown just as many other young commoners did. His progress with his human appearance was certainly an occasion far more important than whatever sun-shooting was happening in Qishan.

He came across a well-trodden, wide path and took it downhill. This was also Wei Ying’s cue to look for a thorny bush and yank free a vine. As he ran his fingers over the vine, he channeled a flicker of red qi into it and each thorn transformed into a neatly carved arrow fletched with a fox-red and white feather. He repeated the procedure several times until he had a bundle of arrows large enough to pass as his reason for visiting the town.

Preparations complete, he continued on the path. Soon, he was passing the outlying farms until dirt paths turned to stone under his booted human feet and he walked between haphazard rows of houses.

Wei Ying took his time to reach the town’s center, taking detours here, lingering there, always hoping for his keen ears to pick up snippets of conversation. It was vital that he kept track of the mood in town and heard early on of any suspicion about vulpine incidences. Especially now that two men had died too young and abruptly, with little visible cause, all within the last two months. At least the victims had been peasants with no family to kick up a stir or pay cultivators to investigate, and last Wei Ying checked in on the town, their deaths had been brushed off as the usual bad luck. He wasn’t convinced but he had yet to find any leads, so all he could do was find excuses to spend more time in town as a human by day and roam it faithfully by night as a fox.

Today, the townspeople were tense and taciturn, hurrying along the streets with nary a mind for their usual friendly chitchat. There were no suspicious glances sent his way, Wei Ying reminded himself as he felt the urge to bristle his currently non-existent fur. Nevertheless, he quickened his pace, suddenly very impatient to reach the shopkeepers he was sure to sweet-talk into sharing the latest news with him.

“Ying’er! There you are!” Granny Lu called to him as soon as she caught sight of him, eagerly waving him over to her rickety stall. She sold dried fruits, meats, and other human foodstuffs Wei Ying only found moderately interesting. Granny Lu had the best dried fruits in town, no doubt about it, but they couldn’t compare to a nice, juicy hare you’d run down yourself. “I haven’t seen you in weeks, I thought you had come to your senses and left for a better place to live. But that you wouldn’t even come to say goodbye to this old woman!”

Wei Ying innocently widened his eyes at her. “Would I ever leave a pretty woman without saying goodbye? Why do you think such cruel things of me, popo!” He picked up a strip of dried meat and waved it around. “I’ll need this to heal my wounded heart.”

Granny Lu laughed and shook her head. “Take it, take it, you stinky brat! If only you would take my advice instead! This town is no good, the bad feng shui of this valley won’t let anyone live a long and happy life. You are young, and you have no elders keeping you here. I will never understand why you even settled here. Even cultivators avoid our town, and they are drawn to ill omens like ants to my…”

“…your honeyed plums,” Wei Ying finished the familiar gripe along with her. It earned him an appreciative laugh and a swat to his arm, both of which he accepted gleefully. “It’s because these immortal heroes have no sense of adventure, that’s why. They are as boring and dull as they come, and run away from shadows, while your Ying’er fears nothing!”

“Wasteful with your youth is what you are,” Granny Lu insisted, stubborn as ever.

Wei Ying laughed, paying her complaints little mind as he chewed on his meat strip.  It’s not that she was wrong; if he were human, he would be foolish to settle down in one of these forsaken places everybody only wished to leave. But being far away from the offices of mortal magistrates and beneath the notice of cultivation sects made this little town the safest place for him to mingle with humans.

“Hush, popo, I even brought you a gift, see?” He produced a small paper-wrapped package from his sleeve. “When you thought I had run away, I was gathering herbs in the mountains. Stir a pinch of this powder into your tea every night, and it will help with your aching joints.” Dried flowers and herbs, helped along with a dash of his fox powers, it could hardly compare to the famed fox medicines said to heal all ailments or bring the dead back to life, but Wei Ying had learned his lesson about doing too much, too fast. Or at least he thought he had learned his lesson. He was getting better at this whole stealth thing, anyway, this was his second year here and he hadn’t frightened the humans into running him out of town yet.

It was only after he had left Granny Lu’s stall behind that he remembered he was a fox on a mission, and he had just wasted his friendliest opportunity to catch up on gossip.

Wei Ying pouted at himself, consoling himself that he had at least gotten a treat out of it. If only it could have been a bone, he loved chewing on bones. The cracking sound when it broke was very satisfying and licking out the marrow even more so.

Now that he was paying attention, he noticed the market crowd being just as anxious as the people he had met while making his way into town, only chattier.

He chewed on his strip of meat as he walked amongst them, picking up snatches of conversation here and there.

A tragedy, it was, an old man said; no, no, it was divine punishment from the heavens for his greed, another argued.

They had draped their gates and all rooms with white silk, as if this was any time to be bragging about their wealth, the rice seller huffed.

“What’s this? Every time I come into town, I hear somebody else has died,” Wei Ying complained as he reached Old Man Zhao, who sold all kinds of woodwork, including plain bows and arrows suited to hunting. Most of his goods were simpler, ranging from spoons and bowls or wooden buckets to the occasional toy or hair pin - simple things people needed for a simple life. Old Zhao had no sons or grandsons left alive, and his hands weren’t as nimble as they used to be, so he was happy enough to buy the products of Wei Ying’s whittling.

Old Zhao got up from the wooden stool he perched on while waiting for customers, his wrinkled face bright with eagerness though his old body moved slowly. “It’s not just someone dying, boy; with the feng shui we have somebody is dying all the time. This time, someone died!”

Wei Ying looked blankly into the expectant, crinkly face, pure incomprehension written on his own.

“Someone died, you daft boy!” the old man snapped, wagging a finger in his face. “Someone important.” He leaned all the way over the table displaying his wares. “You wouldn’t believe the frenzy the Wu have stirred up!”

That… didn’t explain as much as the old man seemed to believe it did. Wei Ying blinked at him. “Lao Wu is dead?” he asked, slowly. “That’s important, I guess, but he’s ancient, and has been sickly for years.”

“No, no! Nothing like that!” The old man cackled, wearing something that looked a lot like a gleeful grin. Wei Ying had to stifle his amusement at that; Grandpa Zhao hated the Wu family, the richest merchants far and wide who lorded over all shopkeepers in town as if they were their personal retainers. “It is the young master; he was found dead in the best room at the inn and in quite a scandalous state!”

Alright, this was slightly more interesting. Wei Ying made an encouraging noise to keep him talking while he handed his bundle of arrows over.

“Very fine work, my boy. If you keep this up, I’ll have to start paying you more or risk losing my best helper,” the old man praised as he inspected a few arrows. Satisfied, he unknotted the ribbon holding the bundle together and placed them next to the bows. “So, the Wu brat. He was found in the inn last week, the day after you last were in town. And what a fuss his family has been making ever since!” He shook his head, tsking with gleeful disapproval. “Now if you ask me… That lad might as well have been keeping the brothel afloat by himself and everybody knows of his sickly constitution. It’s no surprise plucking these pretty flowers would kill him one day. But the Wu family wouldn’t have any of it! They insisted he must have been murdered, but nobody…”

“Nobody what?” Wei Ying prompted, caught up in the drama of the tale and eager for the next twist. Nobody in town liked the Wu family and their heavy-handed ways, or the lecherous young master with his grabby hands. If misfortune had to befall anyone, it couldn’t have happened to nicer people. Yet he could do nothing but watch as the old man took his sweet time counting his pay for the arrows. 

Finally, he handed the coins over and continued, “Nobody would have thought much of it, except the innkeeper’s son said he saw something slip out of his room that night – and it wasn’t human!”

It felt like the ground had been yanked out from underneath Wei Ying’s feet.

“But…!” But I didn’t, I wasn’t there, I wasn’t even in town that night, I was tracking a pulse of energy I’d sensed to the north, he wanted to say. Naturally, there wasn’t a single thing he could actually say out loud to defend himself. His fingers balled into a fist around the coins.

“But that sounds like more nonsense, I know,” Old Zhao agreed happily. “You have to understand, the Wu family is near mad with grief. That good-for-nothing boy was the only son they had left. No other living sons, no grandsons, and their only daughter already married out. They are angry with fate and want somebody to blame so they can throw silver at the problem and have it fixed. That’s why they have been telling everyone that their son was killed by a ghost, and they would spare no expenses to hire cultivators to hunt it down!”

It was a sunny day and Wei Ying felt icy chills skitter down his spine.

This was a joke, right? It had to be a joke.

He laughed nervously, a sound far too much like a fox’s laugh for his own nerves. “Ming Kuang spends more time drunk than sober; nobody should believe him even if he vows to have met a bodhisattva in the flesh.”

“I know, I know! But they have money.”

“Yes, but…” He cut himself off. There was no reason to panic. Cultivators didn’t just drop everything to go on a manhunt at the word of some small-town merchant. Their message probably wouldn’t even reach the sect for many weeks yet. By the time some cultivator showed up, if any ever did, the Wu family would have found a way to profit from this misfortune and they wouldn’t be willing to pay for a night hunt anymore.

“Do you know which sect they are going to contact?”

“They did so last week already. Turns out they still had some special cultivator… spell… array… some sort of signal paper to call for help with back when this land was held by…”

Old Zhao’s words were drowned out by the shouts of the crowd and people hastily making way, leaving a wide path for the six figures in blue or lavender uniforms, led by a strikingly beautiful man clad in rich purple.

“Yunmeng Jiang!” the whispers went through the crowd, stirred with eager and anxious excitement alike.

100 years after this swathe of land had fallen into the hands of Qishan Wen and then fallen to the wayside altogether, Yunmeng Jiang was back in town.

Wei Ying gaped at them in sheer, wide-eyed disbelief – unable to comprehend that his lazy, carefree life could be upturned within a single day. Even just this morning, today had been a good day to be a fox!

There were two men and four women accompanying their purple-clad leader, who had them scatter all over the market with a commanding nod and a quick order of, “Don’t get distracted. We are here for information gathering, not for shopping.”

Wei Ying felt indignation mingle with his disbelief. Well! Why! Excuse him, pretty purple immortal cultivator with the chiseled cheekbones! He had been here first. You could even say he had called dibs on this place, for information gathering and for everything else to boot!

And yet, here they were, on his market, nosing around his fellow townspeople.

The oldest of the women was close enough that Wei Ying could hear her asking questions of the boy selling mantous, asking about young master Wu, and about the other deaths – they were already investigating the other deaths, too?! How long ago had they arrived?

If Wei Ying had been a more cunning, or simply a less reckless sort of fox, he would have high-tailed it out of there at this point. Possibly packed his little bundle and high-tailed it out of the entire cursed valley. It would be days, maybe weeks before anybody noticed his conspicuously timed disappearance.

Yet Wei Ying was Wei Ying and what he did was skedaddle over to the mantou stall, and gasp, “Are you saying they were murdered, all three of them? But everybody said they drank themselves to death!”

Before he could even get an answer, Wei Ying caught sight of the man in purple making a beeline for Old Man Zhao. Old Man Zhao, who had Wei Ying’s fox arrows right there displayed for everyone to see. And the purple cultivator wasn’t solely asking questions like his little helpers, he had keen eyes that were taking in all his surroundings, the people and the stalls and the wares, and now he was stopping right by the weapons display…

“The craftsmanship of your bows is solid,” the cultivator remarked as he picked up a nice bamboo hunting bow and appreciatively tested the flexibility of it. “Are all your weapons made of bamboo? These arrows don’t look like it, what are they made of?”

Driven by sheer panic, stealth be damned, Wei Ying darted back to Old Zhao’s stall and scooped up the bundle of arrows just as the cultivator‘s hand reached for one. Several of the arrows clattered back onto the table in his haste, and some even fell onto the ground. He picked them up hastily, his fingers tingling with vestiges of his own fox power.

He laughed nervously, flashing a wide, slightly manic grin at Grandpa Zhao and the pretty man who was… Glaring at him now, and… Oh. Wei Ying felt his cheeks burn hot; these glaring eyes were just as pretty as his face. “Forgive this humble one, forgive my rudeness! But these aren’t for sale!”

And Grandpa Zhao, a curse onto him and his entire bloodline, just laughed and said with happily crinkled eyes, “Please forgive him, honorable immortal, he gets silly when he is flustered. These arrows are his handiwork, and he’s never dreamed of having his work catch the eyes of a cultivator. But his hands work wood like it is magic and…. No, don’t deny it, Wei Ying! Lu-meimei would never forgive me if I let you pass up the chance to show off your craft to a proper sect.”

He kept rambling on about opportunities and not wasting his life in such a wretched place, but Wei Ying only had eyes for the cultivator and his glare. He had a faint dusting of freckles on his nose and his forehead was adorably wrinkled when he scowled.

He was also looking at Wei Ying as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to look at him with suspicion or scorn.

“And you are,” he demanded. It wasn’t a question.

“Wei Ying,” he blurted out before he could even weigh his options. It was obviously very foolish to give his name, but with Grandpa Zhao keenly listening, it wasn’t like he could lie even if he weren’t too overwhelmed to think of a clever lie. Well, the damage was done, so the only path left was forward. And thus Wei Ying, still ungracefully clutching his thorns-turned-arrows-turned-incriminating evidence, flashed the cultivator his best, brightest smile and winked at him as he bowed. “This humble one is flattered an immortal master asks for his name. Will you tell me yours or should I just call you the prettiest cultivator?”

The cultivator made an alarming noise as if he had just choked on his own spit, and if Wei Ying’s hands hadn’t been otherwise occupied, he would have taken the chance to pat his back. Stupid arrows that kept getting in the way.

Bright flickers of qi tasting of naga powers caught Wei Ying’s attention. His eyes tracked it to the human’s right hand, which he had balled into a fist. Sparks of lightning danced over his hand from a ring chained to a snake bracelet.

Wei Ying winced – he had been hit by lightning once, and his fur had smelled faintly singed for years.

“No need for violence,” he chuckled nervously, taking half a step back, his arms full of arrows held up like a shield. But the cultivator really did have the prettiest dark eyes. And these cheekbones… No, no, he had to focus. First step: Don’t get hit by lightning. Second step: Retreat (gracefully.) Third step: Come up with a brilliant plan to fox your way out of this mess (somehow.) “If a beauty is shy, a true gentleman knows to bide his time.”

“Do you want to die!” the man barked; his face, his ears, his throat all flushed red with mortification.

Oh, look at him. Death threats. Did this mean he had failed all three steps at once?

“I… I just remembered I left my soup cooking!” Wei Ying blurted out like the very pinnacle of vulpine cunning he was today. It was all the fault of these cheekbones. And these passionate, glowering eyes. It wasn’t fair; he was only a fox, not a bodhisattva.

Either way, Wei Ying and his arrows finally high-tailed it out of there the fastest his pride would permit. The cultivator didn’t call him back or demand an explanation. Wei Ying suspected he just thought him too ridiculous to bother with, though he preferred to think he had been convinced by his excuse. After all, what kind of monster would let good soup come to harm?

Wei Ying disposed of the fateful arrows as soon as he left the town behind. A flicker of his qi was enough to undo his work and thorns fluttered to the ground, left behind and forgotten where they fell as Wei Ying returned to his hut high up in the forest.

Once back home, he got out a nice jar of baijiu and hopped onto the roof to soak up the warmth of the sun while he had a good think.

If he were a more cautious fox, he would be leaving. But if he were a more cautious fox, he wouldn’t be much of a fox at all, and where would be the fun in that? With the cultivators all the way down in town chasing after specters born of Ming Kuang’s drunken imagination and him all the way up here with good alcohol, Wei Ying’s earlier scare felt very far away.

Even if the young master had been killed by supernatural causes, so what? It had nothing to do with him. He would just have to refrain from feeding on the locals until the cultivators had left. Since he cultivated by slipping into houses and lapping up excess qi from the breath of the sleeping, there wasn’t even a conspicuously sickly lover to trace back to him.

Wei Ying saluted himself with another swig of baijiu, plenty pleased with himself and his plan. He was really far too clever for any human to outfox him. Even if he would like another look at these chiseled cheekbones…

Chapter Text

He made it exactly one day before he saw these chiseled cheekbones again and for once, Wei Ying’s vulpine lack of impulse control was completely innocent of all wrongdoing.

He stood at his door, gobsmacked, and felt very wronged by life, fate, and everything. This wasn’t what he had meant when he thought he wanted to ogle these cheekbones again.

“Don’t even think about it,” the human said as soon as Wei Ying opened his mouth – and yes, chances were he would have said something shameless but still. Rude.

“What did I do to deserve you thinking the worst of me?” he pouted. “You don’t even know me!”

The cultivator’s scowl lightened, and Wei Ying learned that his lips looked particularly kissable when he was smug. Damn him and his kissable lips, they were far too distracting for Wei Ying’s good.

“I know your name is Wei Ying, and that you moved here a year and a half ago. You have no wife or family that anybody knows of but are in good standing with the merchants in town, for whom you run odd jobs. You make a living by hunting and gathering in the forest, going deeper than anyone else in town dares, and have a talent for woodwork.” The cultivator took a moment to let that sink in, albeit not long enough to let Wei Ying recover, before he added, “I would like to come in now.” It didn’t sound like a request.

“You’re supposed to wait until I invite you in and offer you tea, and then you refuse politely several times before you graciously surrender,” Wei Ying protested, and the fact that he of all people was lecturing a gentry cultivator on good manners only made this moment more surreal.

Still, Cheekbones wasn’t all wrong, so Wei Ying stepped aside with a playful flourish. “Please, immortal hero, be my guest and honor this humble home!”

“Jiang Wanyin,” the cultivator huffed, though he didn’t bow, salute, or do anything Wei Ying was pretty sure well-bred little cultivators were supposed to do when introducing themselves.

Wei Ying hummed and made a grand show of letting his eyes wander appreciatively over the cultivator’s toned body. “I would wait countless nights to hear your chant.”

He should probably be worried about having a cultivator on a night hunt in his fox’s den, yet he found it hard to muster genuine concern. Wei Ying was reckless, not foolish. His home had talismans worked into the very structure of the hut to cover up all traces of his power and disguise the true nature of every object that might give him away. Unless Jiang Wanyin turned out to be another fox or an actual immortal, there was no way he would see through Wei Ying’s disguises. He had even accounted for cultivation items like that cute little dispelling bell dangling from Jiang Wanyin's belt. A single bell wouldn't be enough, not when he didn’t even know exactly what he was looking for.

“Shut up!” Jiang Wanyin sputtered very prettily and shot him another glare, but there was such a charming flush to his cheeks that Wei Ying couldn’t even muster a token pretense of being cowed by his glower. He was just too cute; how did anybody ever resist teasing him?

“Now, now, is this how you treat the man who has invited you for tea, Jiang-gongzi?” Wei Ying paused, humming as he tapped his nose thoughtfully. Wait, if this was Jiang Wanyin… “Jiang-zongzhu?”

His face tightened and he only gave a curt nod before he deftly refocused his attention on inspecting his surroundings far more studiously than the hut warranted.

Wei Ying helpfully left the door open so more light could filter in and left him to his investigation.

There wasn’t much to see, really. The hut was built into the slope of the mountainside, with the back wall actually leading deeper into his burrow, not that Jiang Wanyin would be able to see or sense it. All that was on display was the part intended to be seen by human eyes – a humble wooden hut consisting of a single large room, quaint and cozy with plenty of paper-covered windows to light it up. A plain bed with a straw mattress sat at the back, on the other side was a kitchen area. This was where he went now to put water on the stove for tea. A low table stood by the corner of the wall where two windows shone their light on it, seating mats around it. The best thing about his hut were several shelves filled with half-finished projects and a work bench for his woodcarving, over which herbs hung from the low ceiling to dry.

“Don’t mind the sawdust, it gets everywhere,” he said, as cheerful as if this were an inspection for cleanliness. “I’m out of green tea, I hope you don’t mind my own. It’s made from dried flowers and herbs I gathered. Unless you’d prefer alcohol, which I would prefer.”

In the process of pretending to be a hermit in the woods, he had actually learned a thing or two about living from the forest in a human way, though he would still rather chew on the flowers and drink baijiu. In truth, it was more fun to live in a town surrounded by noise, restless activity, and a new adventure waiting around every corner. But if he wanted to stay in a place long-term, keeping up the pretense while under constant scrutiny took far more self-discipline than he was willing to put into it.

“I will take the tea. You are skilled with wood,” Jiang Wanyin observed as he inspected the half-finished trinkets on the shelf, everything from toy soldiers to delicately carved wooden combs.

Wei Ying shrugged. “I like to keep my hands busy.” Then he remembered himself, widened his smile into a positively foxy grin, and added, “My hands have many skills, if Jiang-zongzhu would like to inspect these, too.”

Jiang Wanyin sputtered. “Are you always this shameless?”

He paused, pot held aloft just as he meant to pour the water, and mulled on that for a moment. This was somewhat of a loaded question to ask a huli jing, really.

“Yes,” he decided in the end, which was honest enough. “But I’m shameless by nature and it’s not so much to make anyone specific blush, so it doesn’t apply to you.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with the force of his smile. “With you, I’m being shameless on purpose. There’s nobody in town even half as pretty as the sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang!”

“You talk too much,” Jiang Wanyin huffed and turned his back on him, showing off a pair of stiff but very handsome shoulders.

“I hear that a lot,” Wei Ying agreed, blithely unconcerned.

He placed the cheap earthenware teacups on the low table, shrugging a little when he noticed Jiang Wanyin’s attention shift to it. There wasn’t any censure in his gaze, just idle curiosity. Were cultivators often guests in the homes of alleged peasants? He would think not. Then again, if Jiang Wanyin always investigated his night hunts so thoroughly…

“I know it’s not much by your standards, but I’ve never understood why people waste so much time and effort on collecting expensive things they don’t even take joy in. If it’s to impress other people – why waste time caring what others think?”

As he sat down across from him, Jiang Wanyin’s lips twisted into something a little bit too bitter to pass for a smile. “That is an opinion a woodcarver can afford to have,” he said. Oddly enough, the tone of his voice wasn’t as insulting as the words implied.

“It’s an opinion I live by.” Wei Ying sprawled more comfortably, right elbow propped up on the table, chin placed on top of it. “But you didn’t come here for my tea or words of wisdom, did you? What do you want to know?”

The faintest moment of hesitation flickered over Jiang Wanyin’s pretty face. A gentry cultivator to whom lies didn’t come naturally; how curious. He kept getting more and more adorable.

“All three victims liked to drink, so we are speaking to everyone who might have been drinking with them lately. Did they mention anything out of the ordinary?”

Wei Ying paused as if he hadn’t analyzed every conversation back and forth. “I don’t think so? I wasn’t fancy enough for Wu-gongzi to talk to me much, and I wasn’t in town often enough to be friends with the others. We would share a drink sometimes, but we never spoke of anything important. They taught me some local drinking songs. There is this one about a fisherman’s daughter, do you want to…” Jiang Wanyin’s glower made him grin. “Or not. Your loss. But no, they never mentioned anything other than being short of money, or work being hard, or they would complain when they lost a week’s worth of silver to me playing dice. Nobody in town can beat me at dice!”

“You aren’t upset.”

He gave a lazy, one-shouldered shrug. “I didn’t know them well enough to mourn and it’s not like they left family behind for me to pity. And Wu Ping… Other than his parents, you won’t find anyone in town who is sorry he is dead. I’m not saying it’s impossible he made an enemy even of yao or ghosts but…” He spread his hands and then went for a sip of tea.

Honestly, if Wu Ping had been murdered, it made a lot of sense to Wei Ying that he had been poisoned by one of his many human enemies. And yet, there had been this qi signature he had caught several times over the past two months, and there were the other deaths… Maybe he would get lucky. The cultivators would only get paid for Wu Ping; as long as his death turned out to be mundane, they ought to call off the night hunt.

“Why don’t we talk about something more interesting? You could tell me about Lotus Pier. I have never been there, but I heard it’s beautiful.”

Jiang Wanyin grimaced. “I’m not here for a social visit.”

“And yet you are here, and we are chatting while you drink my tea. It looks social enough to me.”

“You live in a hut in the woods. Your standards for social visits are very low.”

“My standards are very high, that’s why I only bother with visitors I like.” If Wei Ying hadn’t been disguised, his tails would have been swaying behind him in delight. He was getting an actual conversation instead of glares; Cheekbones liked him!

Jiang Wanyin busied himself with his tea, pretending that he hadn’t heard Wei Ying. He really was far too much fun to tease. “Is this why you live all the way out here?”

He gave another shrug, this one a little bit more uneasy. “It’s not that I don’t like people, I do. But I like my freedom, too. This life suits me better.”

The cultivator just nodded as if some suspicion of his had been confirmed; Wei Ying didn’t know what to think of that. Only, then he asked, “What do you want to know about Lotus Pier?” and his wariness was forgotten.

“Is it really built on the water, houses on stilts?” He flashed a toothy grin. “I heard that Jiang cultivators have jiaoren ancestry and can breathe underwater.”

“We have what?” Jiang Wanyin barked, though the sharpness in his voice seemed to be born from surprise rather than outrage. “No, but we are good swimmers and divers, and uniquely skilled at fighting in or on the water.”

“I’m a good swimmer, too, but I don’t like getting wet.”

“That sounds inconvenient for someone who spends all his days outdoors.”

“I suppose,” Wei Ying responded slowly, mulling over it. “I never thought about it like that.” He was a fox, after all, and who had ever heard of a fox being an indoor animal?

Jiang Wanyin looked amused for some reason, though he stood up with barely a murmur of thanks as soon as he had finished his tea. He returned his attention to the shelves.

Wei Ying cleared the cups away just to keep himself busy. When he returned from his task, he found Jiang Wanyin paying close attention to a collection of feathers he kept. He kept feathers of all kinds of local birds to serve him as study objects. He had to get the details right when mimicking the feathers of local birds, which he commonly used for his arrows and plain toys. The humans were familiar with these animals; any flaw would arouse even more suspicion than using materials from far away.

That Jiang Wanyin was studying his samples wasn’t a problem in itself. What was a problem was that he held a feather in his hand that Wei Ying knew for a fact didn’t come from his collection: a feather in shades of fox-red and white, exactly the same as the ones he had whimsically made up for the last batch of arrows he took into town.

Even worse, he slipped it back into a fold of his robes as soon as he noticed Wei Ying’s attention on him.

Wei Ying forced a cheery smile back onto his face. “Do you like them? I hunted them myself.”

“You must be an impressive hunter, running down such a large variety of prey,” the cultivator said, and he didn’t even sound mocking. Wei Ying would have rather had him sound mocking.

He laughed. “I am impressive.” He was a clutzy fool, this was what he was.

Fortunately, Jiang Wanyin seemed to be about done with this visit and curtly announced he would be returning to town now. Wei Ying couldn’t tell if he spoke the truth but he didn’t dare shadow him, either. The bamboo patch he had to travel through wasn’t thick enough for a nine-tailed fox to go unnoticed in broad daylight. It would have been so much easier in areas with thicker underbrush.

Once the door closed behind the cultivator, Wei Ying sank against it and groaned.

How had he even overlooked one of the arrows? Had it fallen somewhere he didn’t see, or had Jiang Wanyin suspected him all along and swiped one while Wei Ying was scrambling around on the floor to gather his stray evidence?

Most mortifying of all was the niggle of hurt he felt at the thought that the pretty cultivator had only chatted with him because he was under suspicion.

He pushed that thought aside and went to the back wall behind his bed. He wanted to transform and race through the forest until his restless energy had exhausted itself but that would have to wait until nightfall. Instead, he stepped right through the wooden wall at the back of his hut.

On the other side, he was greeted by the damp, musty earthen smell of a burrow dug into compact soil. A snap of his fingers and a flicker of his qi was enough to light the lamps. The snap wasn’t necessary, but he sure felt better about himself for sticking to his style. A fox still had his pride, even if he had been played for a fool by a mere mortal.

Down a winding tunnel was a room with another work bench, where he fooled around with the spiritual tools that held his attention far longer than carving toy swords or combs. It also held rows upon rows of talismans hanging from threads or spread out on the floor. There were stacks of blueprints and notes, drawings of landscapes and people, and even whimsical drawings of places he would like to create once his powers of illusion were strong enough.

He had a whole assortment of passion projects to cheer himself up with here and in the adjoining rooms, but what he needed right now was some sort of clever solution to his problem – and the first step would be to figure out just how much this problem was actually his problem.

There was no helping it: He needed to pay a visit to Wu Ping’s corpse and find out how he had died.

Wei Ying had assumed the difficult part would be figuring out the cause of death.

He had not expected that even just getting to the corpse would be difficult.

He had barely made it over the outer walls of the Wu residence before he had to dive behind an ornamental bush and hide from the first Yunmeng Jiang disciple rushing about, his fox body ducked low, nine bushy tails compacted as much as was vulpinely possible and held perfectly still.

Wei Ying gave a yip of relief when the Jiang disciple vanished out of sight, none the wiser, but it soon turned out that he wasn’t the only one.

The entire estate was swarming with the lot of them; and with Jiang Wanyin himself about, Wei Ying was hesitant to get as close as he would need to if he wanted to learn more.

Hiding from cultivators was tricky. The most reliable way was to suppress his huli jing powers, which left him nearly as defenseless as a regular fox but spiritually also nearly indiscernible from one. He could disguise his physical form to near invisibility, which was what he did around regular humans, yet the low-level forms of this were a lit beacon to everyone who knew to sense a yao’s qi. Or he could do what he was doing now, a careful balancing act between the two while bemoaning that he couldn’t even write talismans while he wielded paws instead of hands.

He was making his way deeper into the residence but it was annoying and slower-going than he would have liked. Huli jing were made to be seducers, tricksters, masters of illusions, even to heap boons and misfortune in turn onto humans, but they were not hunters as such. They tricked and charmed their prey; they did not hunt them down and slay them in the shadows to devour them skin and bone. They did just fine hiding in plain sight but this…

After his third heroic dive into the shrubbery, Wei Ying bristled his fur in annoyance. Enough of this unfoxy pussyfooting. It was time to start playing to his strengths.

He retreated to the most shadowed part of the courtyard he was currently hiding in, behind some trees, and let his body lengthen, shift, reform.

A young woman rose to her feet, clad in the uniform of the Wu maids. She reached into a sleeve and withdrew a piece of talisman paper.

Wei Ying hid the talisman in the soft soil around the tree. The shadow of a young boy darted out from behind it, cowering behind another bush.

He had been careful to keep the spiritual flare-up of his transformation and illusion contained – but if it attracted the cultivators, all the better. He would send them on a merry chase hunting literal shadows.

The maid moved quickly then, clutching a vase filled with flowers as if her life depended on it, her head ducked to hide the startling beauty of her face. She walked right past several cultivators in that hurried, anxious manner in which the servants of tyrannical masters flitted around.

Wei Ying hid his triumphant grin behind the harried façade of a maid worried she would end the day getting paddled for laziness if she didn’t return to her mistress’s side fast enough. He had every intention to milk sympathy for that, if necessary, but much to his delight, servants proved as invisible to cultivators as they were to rich commoners.

He knew where the corpse was kept, the Wu clan had invited the entire town to come and pay their respects to Wu Ping which meant that the entire town was gossiping about the affair they were making of it. They had a fancy stone casket set up in a great hall as if a legendary general was being honored instead of a good-for-nothing young master, Grandpa Zhao had sneered. Wei Ying knew that the ridiculously long period of visitation was a byproduct of keeping the corpse around for the cultivators without actually admitting to doing so, but it was still convenient. He would hate to break into a family tomb; he was having enough bad luck right now without enraging the Wu ancestors.

As he entered the courtyard of the hall that held the corpse, the faintest flicker of his powers of illusion swapped his bouquet for a bundle of incense sticks.

He was basically right outside the door when said doors opened from the inside.

Stifling a curse, Wei Ying slipped back into the shadows to the side of the building.

He pressed himself against the wall, ears pricked for every noise.

There were three pairs of light-footed steps and when he focused, three strong sources of energies that called to him, promising a veritable feast. Cultivators.

He needn’t have bothered to figure this out for himself, for a moment later, he heard the familiar voice of Jiang Wanyin say, “Remind everyone to be vigilant. The prey we are hunting is far more cunning than what we encounter on a regular night hunt. Fox spirits are masters of seduction and illusion.”

Wei Ying nearly dropped his incense sticks.

A fox? They were hunting for a fox? And seduction? They were not just hunting for any sort of fox; they were hunting for a huli jing.

But he was the only huli jing in town! Yes, granted, he had noticed these blips of another powerful presence, but what kind of powerful huli jing would it take to remain hidden from him for months? Ridiculous. Humans liked to see huli jing where there were none, maybe Cheekbones just wasn’t as skilled a cultivator as he fancied himself.

Wei Ying waited impatiently for the cultivators to leave this courtyard and as soon as they were out of sight, he slipped into the hall holding the coffin.

The spacious hall was decorated exactly as lavishly as the gossip said, yet Wei Ying only took note of the lamps burning brightly. How convenient.

He let illusions fall away as he stepped closer to the imposing casket of white stone, the incense vanishing, his shape blurring and reforming into a young man that looked just like the human face he wore in town – only with fox ears peeking out of his hair, and a bushy tail behind him. He wore black robes of a slim fit, the only dab of color a hair ribbon as red as his fur.

In this form, it was easy to push aside the slab of stone on top of the casket though it was two fingers thick.

He peered into the coffin, huffing at the sight of a perfectly preserved young master.

“Well, at least they had preservation talismans, this would have been gross otherwise.” He rubbed his clawed hands and reached into the coffin, placing two fingers over the corpse’s lower dantian. Wei Ying’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Now let’s see what secrets you have to tell…”

When Wei Ying decided to sneak in, he had assumed figuring out the cause of death would be the hard part. Humans were fragile creatures, they died in a thousand different ways every day.

But if Jiang Wanyin believed Wu Ping had been killed by a huli jing, that narrowed it down even if he was wrong. Wu Ping must have died from having his jing depleted, or possibly his qi, for Jiang Wanyin to come to this ridiculous conclusion – which meant Wei Ying only needed to find lingering traces of the culprit’s powers, and he would know what kind of creature he was hunting. With some luck, the traces would be strong enough to give him a proper taste, something he would recognize if he encountered it again.

It was easy.

It was easy, and it was obvious, no room for doubt.

Wei Ying yanked his hand back as if it had been burned. The fox qi lingered on his fingertips and in his mind.

Huli jing. There could be no doubt about it, he could taste it on his tongue. The attack had been so blunt that Wei Ying could even tell the method of his death. Lust and greed clung to his tongue.

He needed to think. He needed… Wei Ying didn’t know what he needed, to be honest, because he just couldn’t believe it. Why here? Why now? Why like this? Even huli jing who always meant to kill their human lovers didn’t kill like this, draining their food in one night and leaving such a telltale wasteland of spiritual damage. Huli jing ensnared and bled humans over months, slowly sapping away at their jing while the humans grew weaker and weaker yet remained too caught up in their obsession to tear themselves away. This, though, this was simply a waste of a good meal.

Before he could mull on it any further, Wei Ying’s fox ears picked up footsteps. Racing footsteps, coming right for him.

There was no time to put the slab back in place or weave himself a hiding place with the kind of complex illusion that might withstand a cultivator’s active scrutiny.

He grew smaller, body shifting mid-leap, sprouting eight more tails to join the one he already had. His front paws hit the stone slab teetering precariously on the edge of the casket and his hind paws sent it crashing to the floor as they slammed into the stone to propel himself forward in an impossible leap. His nine tails fanned out just so and guided him in this gravity-defying leap.

The doors slammed open just in time for the cultivator to see Wei Ying shoot muzzle-first through the paper pane of a window at the far end of the hall.

“It’s here!” he heard Jiang Wanyin bellow and there were more pounding footsteps behind him, then none at all as the cultivators took to the air, maybe.

Wei Ying had no time to look back as he darted through courtyards and over roofs and walls with maddening speed, twice nearly getting his tails clipped by the unfairly long lightning whip Jiang Wanyin was chasing him with.

Only, it was a moonless night, and he knew this town far better than the cultivators did. He could lead them on a merry chase all they liked; it would never be much of a hunt. Not here in this familiar town, where he could hide behind a hundred faces and in a thousand places, where he had, in fact, safe places that were shielded by arrays and talismans just like his hut in the woods.

He spent an entertaining shichen drinking in his favorite wine house as Old Man Zhao while the cultivators scurried around town.

It should have been a fun night, merry chase and everything, yet Wei Ying wasn’t even the least bit happy as he made his way back to his hut on nimble paws.

There was another huli jing murdering people in his town and thanks to that mess with the arrows, Wei Ying might very well already be the prime suspect. He probably shouldn’t even return to his hut, except that he needed to. All his talismans, his research, his spiritual tools were there, and his burrow had several secret exits if the cultivators did come for him.

Would they? Would Jiang Wanyin want Wei Ying’s pelt, simply because he would get paid for delivering a fox skin to the Wu clan and any fox would do? Yunmeng Jiang never used to be like that, there was a reason why Wei Ying had entertained these rumors of jiaoren ancestry long enough to ask, but this Jiang was young and needed successful hunts to his name.

So he could let himself get chased out of town, or he could hope that Jiang Wanyin wouldn’t go for the easy solution even if he failed to track down the other fox.

No. That wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to run, nor would he sit around and wait for others to decide his fate.

It was very simple, he concluded: Wei Ying would have to find the other fox before he was found.

Chapter Text

The following day, no cultivators came to his hut.

The day after, Wei Ying’s patience ran out and he went back into town to kick off his own investigation. There was only so much he could do meditating to try and feel out the other fox, or work on new detection talismans. He’d never been one for sitting around, anyway.

Normally, he preferred to do his snooping in town as a fox. Now, he would be stuck going as a human. He wasn’t keen on losing a tail to Jiang Wanyin’s naga whip. Whatever made him stay his sword about Wei Ying, he seemed to believe the fox from the Wu residence to be the murderer. He would not hesitate when he saw it again and Wei Ying liked his tails.

Investigating as a human turned out far more annoying than he’d anticipated; information gathering took more effort when you couldn’t just skulk around in the shadows and eavesdrop as you liked. Wei Ying was sociable and pretty much universally well-liked, the perks of his huli jing charm, but it was simply frustratingly slow to chat his way through town just to tease out a snippet here and there.

He didn’t dare change his procedure though, for one of the first things he learned was that the Jiang disciples had been asking around after him. He really couldn’t risk more conspicuous fox sightings.

By some stroke of good luck, he managed to dodge all encounters with cultivators on day one and even on day two, when he finally pursued his first solid lead.

A perk of investigating as a human: It could involve alcohol.

There was plenty of alcohol on the table he occupied at his favorite wine house, even if he was drinking less and nudging more of it towards the middle-aged man slumped across from him. It had truly been a lucky break that he had snuck out of the mourning Wu estate to get drunk just on the night Wei Ying was snooping around his beloved watering hole.

“…and shaoye never had anything nice to say either,” Hu Xun complained between swigs of mijiu. He slammed the cup down, scowling at the piece of pottery as if it bore his deceased master’s face. Hu Xun was a plain man, hair greying before its time, face always frowning. “Nobody liked him while he was a nuisance being alive and nobody likes them making a nuisance of his death, is what I’m saying.”

Wei Ying nodded and hummed encouragingly. “It must have been very hard for you, being Wu Ping’s manservant,” he said, sympathy quite genuine even if carefully placed. He would have rather plucked each hair on his tails than grovel to that spoilt brat day in, day out.

“It was! I know we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but…” He took another swig of his rice wine.

“Was there anybody at all who liked him, other than his parents?” Wei Ying wondered aloud as he plopped the dice back into the cup so they could play another round, which he would conveniently lose. Hu Xun’s mood improved with every game he won, which got him drinking, which got him talking.

The man scratched his head and finally shrugged. “I doubt it. I bet even his girl didn’t. None of them ever did.”

If Wei Ying had been in his other form right now, he would have pricked his ears. Instead, he moved to eagerly lean forward, only to catch himself just in time, nothing but a hitch of his breath betraying his interest. You couldn’t blame him for being impatient, he thought, he’d been listening to the man's complaints all evening.

“A new girl?” he scoffed, carefully disinterested. “Another poor servant who caught his eye?” He mustn’t get his hopes up, he reminded himself, Wu Ping was a notorious womanizer.

Hu Xun shrugged again, but this time there was a discomfited glint in his eyes before he averted them. “No, no, nothing like that. Some mysterious beauty who was new to the town.”

“Someone new to this town? Here? This town?” Nobody other than Wei Ying would move to this place. If there was somebody new, especially a beautiful single woman, it would be the talk of the town. “A traveler passing through or a merchant maybe?” Alright. Now it was time to get his hopes up. He did lean in close and also caught the waiter’s eye, waving at him to bring Hu Xin another jar of mijiu.

“I don’t know,” the man said, which turned into, “I don’t think so,” once the new jar was placed in front of him. “He wasn’t worried she would leave; he only bragged that she was new to town and didn’t have the worn-down drabness that everyone who lives here gets sooner or later, even the beauties in the Palace of Flowers.”

“And everybody knows Wu Ping was an expert on these beauties,” Wei Ying agreed, flashing him an amiable grin. “So you think she might have been one of Ling da-niang’s girls?”

“Either hers, or another family’s new servant. I don't know why anybody would move here if they got a choice.”

Wei Ying hummed and took a pensive sip of his baijiu. It wasn’t as much as he would have liked, but it was a start. “Whoever she is, I doubt she will mourn him for long. Did he ever mention her name?”

Hu Xun grimaced. “Not a name, no. You know how he talked about women…”

It took Wei Ying long moments to realize that Hu Xun hadn’t simply trailed off meaningfully. No. He was staring at something behind Wei Ying.

A hand wrapped around Wei Ying’s left upper arm in an iron grip and a familiar, stern voice announced, “You are coming with me.”

Oh shit. He was dead.

It was all Wei Ying could do to grab his jar of baijiu before he was unceremoniously yanked to his feet.

“I’m coming! I’m coming! I can walk,” he grumbled and turned around to shoot the pretty purple pest his best disgruntled look, as if the man hadn’t been chasing him with a lightning whip the last time they met.

Wei Ying wondered if his cultivation permitted the human to tell how fast Wei Ying’s heart was pounding, or that his belly was getting all tangled up with dread. His eyes flickered through the wine house, taking in the sight of two female cultivators lingering by the main door and the narrow corridor leading to the back door.

He looked into the scowling face and forced a cheery smile. “If you wanted to share another drink with me, you could have visited! You are always welcome in my home, and my alcohol isn’t watered down, unlike the swill you get here unless you know to slip the waiter some extra silver.”

Wait. No! Foolish, foolish Wei Ying. He did not want to leave with Jiang Wanyin and his pretty, chiseled cheekbones. He should be convincing him to stay here in the crowded wine house, where he was far less likely to lose a tail.

Wei Ying put down his jar on the empty table they were just passing as if he had always intended to and sank onto the mat. He smiled at Jiang Wanyin, who was brought to a halt, too, considering he still held his arm captive. “This is a nice table, let’s sit here. The waiters like me, so you won’t need to worry about watered-down wine.”

Jiang Wanyin scowled at him. “I don’t want…” He cut himself off, jaw clenching as his eyes darted around, taking in the crowd drinking and gambling, and now increasingly interested in whatever new entertainment was coming their way. He ground his teeth and gave Wei Ying’s arm another tight squeeze – ouch! – before he released it and sat down across from him.

Wei Ying’s smile brightened. “Better, isn’t it?” Oh, he shouldn’t be goading the angry cultivator, he knew he shouldn’t, but Jiang Wanyin’s eyes sparked lightning just like his whip did when he was furious. At this rate, he really was going to lose a tail and he would have no one but himself to blame. He pushed his rescued jar of baijiu towards the cultivator. “Drink. It will help with whatever put that scowl on your face.”

“You have been investigating,” the human stated as if he hadn’t even heard Wei Ying’s excellent attempt to lighten the mood.

He took another drink, mostly to buy himself time. He could deny it – except, he had been caught in the act. He could run – except, what was the point? Jiang Wanyin knew where he lived, and he hadn’t yet come to skin him. He had tracked him down, yet he seemed loathe to risk a public confrontation. Either Wei Ying had been wrong about him having figured out the secret of the arrow, or… Well, he wasn’t sure what his intentions were otherwise, but it was a chance, and Wei Ying had never needed more than a chance.

He didn’t want to spend the next weeks skulking through his own town, dodging cultivators left and right. He also, truth be told, wasn’t terribly keen on confronting a far more powerful huli jing by himself. Or maybe he just really wanted to know why he hadn’t been hunted down yet.

It was brilliant. It was a madman’s plan. (It was no plan at all, just a stroke of liquor-soaked brilliance he decided to pursue with reckless abandon simply because he could.)

“I will tell you what I learned if you let me help,” he announced – and for his boldness, he was rewarded with the unique view of watching the ever-commanding Jiang Wanyin choke on air.

“I’m done here,” Jiang Wanyin said curtly and got to his feet.

“I’m not,” Wei Ying responded cheerfully. He sloshed the half-full jar to prove his point. “Don’t mind if I won’t see you out.”

Jiang Wanyin stood there for a moment with a complicated expression on his face. Then – and Wei Ying could barely believe it – he rolled his eyes with what he could have sworn was amusement.

“Boss,” he said, addressing the wine house’s owner who was just passing by with a tray, “We need a private room. Bring four jars of what he had, then no more disturbances.”

“Wait!” Wei Ying crowed as he danced to his feet, stuck somewhere between delighted disbelief and just sheer disbelieving disbelief bordering on the conviction that this was all a very bizarre and disappointingly clothed dream. “Are you hiring me?”

Jiang Wanyin shot him a glare over his shoulder. “Tch. I’m not paying you.”

Oh. The cheek! The impudence! The sheer brazenness was worthy of a fox!

In danger of losing a tail or not, Wei Ying couldn’t help laughing. “But you’ve got to pay for the alcohol!”

Naturally, there was a very good chance Jiang Wanyin was leading Wei Ying away to murder him, but would he really order wine if he meant to stab Wei Ying in the private room? He followed anyway. This was still his favorite wine house; one he had tweaked with a little bit of that special foxy touch here and there just in case he would ever need to fight an unfair fight. If a human wanted to best him within these walls, they wouldn’t find it easy.

And, well, there was also the fact that he couldn’t protest too much since human woodcarver Wei Ying had no reason to fear being alone with a righteous cultivator. Yet he knew this was a mere excuse he was telling himself to go along with it. If he truly didn’t want to, he would have found a way out. No, it was mostly that he was confident he could handle whatever was thrown at him as long as they remained inside – eager, even. He had always been far too curious for his own good.

The boss fetched four jars of baijiu from behind the counter and took them to a room with a large table easily holding six. Jiang Wanyin’s disciples didn’t follow and as soon as the owner had left, Jiang Wanyin slapped a talisman on the door to prevent eavesdropping.

Wei Ying felt a stirring of doubt about the brilliance of his brilliant idea. Nobody would hear them fighting now. Still. Jiang Wanyin hadn’t brought his disciples; that had to be a good sign, right?

Jiang Wanyin stood in front of the door, arms crossed and face forbidding.

“Talk,” was all he said.

Wei Ying floundered. “Your arms are nice, too,” he blurted out, which was talking, wasn’t it? He hadn’t specified what he wanted Wei Ying to talk about. “I noticed your shoulders before. Is it from all that swimming you’re doing at Lotus Pier?”

Jiang Wanyin’s face darkened, and he pointedly tapped the fingers of his right hand against his left forearm. His spiritual weapon glinted on his finger.

“There’s no need to get violent; I was just asking! I thought showing my appreciation would lighten the mood. You’re supposed to compliment me back now.” He always talked too much when he was nervous. It was just worse than normal around Jiang Wanyin because it took just one look at that forbidding glower and he wanted to flirt with him – and yet everything that came out of his mouth was utterly graceless. It felt right, though, this felt instinctively right even if he didn’t know why mindless chatter was spilling from his lips instead of the slick, charming words even a loud-mouthed huli jing like Wei Ying was capable of when he was seducing someone. 

The human rolled his eyes again. He didn’t look amused this time, only annoyed. “If this is the kind of help you have to offer, I’m wasting my time.”

“No! No, wait.” Wei Ying took a step towards him only to remember he was better off outside of grabbing distance. He went to sit at the table instead. “I was serious when I said I wanted to help. You are investigating and I’m investigating, so we should investigate together. Instead of, you know, you dragging me around like I’m a criminal.”

“You still haven’t given me a good reason why,” Jiang Cheng said, unimpressed, yet he sat down across from him and poured himself a cup.

“Uh, well…” Because he needed to make sure they followed this other trail he had discovered instead of searching for evidence against Wei Ying. Because he didn’t stand a chance of defeating a huli jing so much stronger than him that he couldn’t even detect them. Because he had sensed the utter disregard for human life with which this other huli jing had spiritually shredded Wu Ping into pieces, and he had never encountered a fox with such capacity for cruelty. Wei Ying affected an embarrassed laugh. “Ah, you see, it’s a little bit embarrassing, considering what kind of person Wu Ping is…”

And off he went, weaving a very creative and completely fabricated tale of woe that had Wu Ping helping him when he had just arrived in town, impoverished and a stranger to all.

“I didn’t know he wasn’t the kind of man I’d want to owe a debt to, but like it or not, he is my benefactor. I never got to repay him in life, so I’d like to settle my debts before that awful family of his starts making demands.”

Jiang Wanyin waited patiently for him to be done. The amused glint was back in his eyes.

“So, you see!” Wei Ying exclaimed, gesticulating grandiosely with the hand holding his jar of baijiu, “With you needing a local guide and I needing to pay off my debt, we would be doing one another a favor!”

Jiang Wanyin reached into a fold of his robes.

He placed two items on the table: an arrow and the distinctive fox-red and white feather it had come with.

And then he just looked at Wei Ying and tapped his fingers.

Wei Ying widened his eyes, the very picture of not-a-fox innocence. “Fine, fine, just stop bullying me! I admit I found them. They aren’t mine. Just don’t tell Lao Zhao, he would be so disappoi…”

The lightning whip crackled to life just like that, with no warning.

Jiang Wanyin lifted his fingers after tapping on the tabletop and in the same motion, he abruptly flung his hand forward in a wide arc. A rope of purple lightning shot out, aimed right for Wei Ying’s chest.

Wei Ying kicked away his stool and leaped back in a gravity-defying motion, chest bending backward as the whip grew in length to make up for the additional distance. It passed harmlessly over him, and he snapped upright again, darting to the side to escape the next slash striking down. Fortunately for his preferred unwhipped state, qinggong came easily enough to him even while playing at being human - but the game was up and they both knew it.

Layers of illusions fell away to reveal his fluffy fox ears laid back flat while his puffed-up tail was raised high. With the concealments that kept his powers mostly locked up gone, he felt this power rush through him, fill him up, eagerly responding to the danger.

He thrust out a clawed hand and a whip exactly like Jiang Wanyin’s extended from it, only this one glowed a bright red with his huli jing qi. It was an illusion woven into lightning woven into a whip to mimic Jiang Wanyin’s – fox powers at their finest, if he may take a moment to brag.

Wei Ying smiled, showing off sharp fangs. “Your whip looks fun. Teach this humble fox how to fight with it, immortal master.”

Jiang Wanyin met his smile with something that looked more like a grimace. “Gladly.”

He harried him, purple slashes coming down from above and from the sides and even sweeping just above the ground as if he thought he could simply knock out Wei Ying’s feet under him. It was a maddening chase, fighting with whips in a room that would have been barely large enough even for a sword fight. Not that Wei Ying got many opportunities to use his red whip of illusion and fox qi given shape; he spent most of his time on the defensive. In truth, even fighting with teeth and claws would have been more effective than this – but this, this was far more entertaining.

It took him embarrassingly long to realize that Jiang Wanyin couldn’t possibly be fighting his best, something he found confirmed when a strike landed, hitting him on the thigh but only making him yelp with pain. This weapon was ancient and powerful, yet he had only been given a slap on the wrist with it.

The distraction cost him, the next strike connecting with his left shoulder.

Wei Ying cursed and sent his own whip out, one that didn’t need to follow the rules of motion or logic, and extended straight forward, then changed course mid-air as if on its own volition. It caught the purple whip and ensnared it, twining itself firmly around its length.

Jiang Wanyin wasn’t stunned for longer than the blink of an eye. Before Wei Ying knew it, he gave a mighty yank that pulled him off balance and halfway off his feet, sending him stumbling forward, right toward the cultivator. The purple whip flickered out, the end of his own red whip dropping to the ground without anything to hold on to, and then the purple weapon flared back to life a mere moment later to wrap around Wei Ying’s throat.

He was yanked, again, and stumbled, his face furious with indignation and hands glowing red at his fingertips, ready to slash at a soft belly that would very soon be in arm’s reach. Foolish human, pulling him close when he could gut him with one swipe of his claws…

“Got you,” Jiang Wanyin said, and he smiled, smug and satisfied, with dark eyes gleaming ever so brightly with satisfaction at his victory. “I wondered what it would take to make you stop playing around.”

Wei Ying yanked at the rope of lightning curled around his throat only to think better of it when it burned his hand even though it didn’t sting his throat.

“Do you think this is funny?” he demanded, indignant far more than he was concerned.

And Jiang Wanyin, impossibly, looked him right in the eyes and said, “Yes.”

In hindsight, Wei Ying would realize that this had been the moment he fell in love with Jiang Wanyin.

At this moment, he huffed and puffed up his fur. On his second try, he was allowed to tug away the whip’s length without being stung by it, though this did little to make him feel less annoyed about being leashed like a misbehaving pet dog.

Wei Ying may have been a trickster of a fox – only, jokes weren’t half as funny when he was the butt of the joke.

“You attacked me!” he complained indignantly. His smile sharpened into something predatory and seductive all at once, flashing the white tips of his fangs. His tail stretched out behind him, tip raised coyly. “If sect leader wanted to feel me up, he didn’t need to go to such trouble.”

“If I had attacked you, you would be dead,” Jiang Wanyin corrected, still looking far too pleased with himself, so much that he even ignored the taunting – or maybe the exactly right amount of pleased with himself, it was a good look for him. “I was tired of you sticking to your pretense when we both knew the truth. Zidian shortened the process.”

Fine. Fine.

“This doesn’t explain why I’m not dead,” Wei Ying pointed out, far too curious about this human not to question his good luck. You never knew with cultivators. Most of them were decent enough, albeit nowhere near as righteous and pure as they liked to present themselves. The Daoist masters had the same weaknesses as all mortal men plus some extra ones, just like other powerful men. The problem with them was more that the rotten apples among them were far more dangerous to a huli jing than run-of-the-mill bad humans.

Jiang Wanyin scowled at him as if Wei Ying had said something particularly stupid just to aggravate him. He flexed the fingers of his right hand. The spiritual weapon, Zidian, sparked with it. “If you’re trying to change my mind: Keep going, it’s working.”

“Not that I’m complaining!” Wei Ying added with a laugh. Although he kept one eye on the cultivator, he went back to the sad remnants of their table and fished a jar of baijiu out of the pile of firewood.

“You didn’t try to kill me when we fought, so I’m willing to listen,” Jiang Wanyin said, though he sounded a little bit unconvinced at his own words.

Maybe he didn’t know what to make of Wei Ying any more than Wei Ying knew what to make of him – it was a strangely comforting thought.

Wei Ying had not expected that the cultivator would be willing to give him a chance of his own accord, without needing to be tricked or seduced into it. He had been interested because he was pretty and fun to tease, yes, but he hadn’t given much thought to his personality beyond that. Not that he was going to take any further risks, such as shifting into his fox form and revealing himself as the huli jing that had broken into the Wu estate. For once, it worked in his favor that his peculiar circumstances had him sporting a full nine tails as a fox instead of the single tail a huli jing his age should have. Jiang Wanyin wasn’t easily going to deduce that the one-tailed fox from the wine house and the nine-tails from the estate were one and the same. A lucky break, which he had no intention of giving up lightly. But still. It was surprisingly nice to be offered some trust.

For a mortifying moment, Wei Ying didn’t even know what to say. What an ultimate disgrace for a chatterbox like him.

“You broke the table,” he finally pointed out, even as he ignored the surviving stools to sprawl on the floor. “So now you have to pay for my liquor and for the damages.”

Jiang Wanyin did take a stool, spoilsport that he was. “You have spent the last two days talking to dozens of people. Explain yourself.”

“You wanted to observe me!” He huffed. “This is why I had such an easy time avoiding cultivators, it wasn’t my unique skill at stealth. Aiyah! This wounds my pride as a fox.” Wei Ying eyed him, eyes squinting with his foxy grin. He had sprawled on his side, propped up on an elbow while the other hand held his jar of baijiu. His tail swayed gently behind him, always in motion even when the rest of him managed to keep still. “Again: If you wanted to see more of me, you could have visited.”

Jiang Wanyin heaved an exasperated sigh. It came accompanied by another eye roll. He looked like he had a lot of experience rolling his eyes. “Do you have anything at all for me, or did I think too highly of you?”

“No, no!” Well, fine, if Jiang Wanyin insisted… “I did learn a lot. Probably more than you. Nobody here likes cultivators all that much after they abandoned them a century ago.”

“Yunmeng Jiang didn’t abandon them!” Jiang Wanyin protested heatedly.

Wei Ying found himself suddenly reminded that he wasn’t talking to just any random gentry pretty boy.

The Jiang clan had been wiped out except for him and his sister; the sect was massacred by the Wen humans and later rebuilt by his own hands. Despite being in his mid-20s at most, Jiang Wanyin was now the leader of a great sect. Wei Ying reckoned he had every reason to take pride in his Yunmeng Jiang, even if Wei Ying didn’t find cultivation sects all that impressive on principle. They may not be actively doing evil by hunting down every innocent yaoguai but they were still cultivators, which meant they were definitely guilty of being a bunch of stuck-up bores.

“My ancestors did their best to protect these lands despite it being a battle that could never be won,” he said, a pained frown on his lovely face, “When they were forced to surrender these territories to Qishan Wen, they believed the Wen would continue this duty. But Qishan Wen already held a great swathe of land, and there is no glory to be found in wretched places like this. Too many low-level enemies that make no good trophies and can’t build your reputation, all you do is get bogged down in fighting the same minor battles over and over again until you are ground down to the bone. It wasn't so bad at first while they still permitted rogue cultivators, but Wen Ruohan wouldn't suffer cultivators not under his command to freely wander his lands.”

Wei Ying nodded. “I don't know anything about the human politics behind it but I know about the consequences it had. The fierce corpses, the ghosts, the monsters, and low-level yao… They never run out in a place as inauspicious as this one. If there is even the smallest chance something could cultivate resentment, it is guaranteed to do so here. And the people don’t grow old, they are prone to sickness and misfortune. No respectable cultivation sect would settle in a place like this, but the people are too poor to hire rogue cultivators for anything but the worst dangers. It’s why I stayed.”

“Yet another misfortune to befall this place?” Jiang Wanyin quipped, a wry half-smirk curling the corner of his mouth. He fished around in the smashed wood for another jar and uncorked it, surprising Wei Ying by drinking from the bottle without hesitation.

“It’s not like that! I protect the town. Huli jing aren’t suited to battle, as such, but I can handle the small troubles that befall this town.”

“You could. Until now.” The human’s fingers tapped against the jar. “Unless you are the trouble.”

“Well, I’m not!” he snapped, showing a flash of teeth as his ears flattened to his skull. “I sensed… something off every now and then over the past months, it was enough to make me suspicious of the other two deaths, though people dying young isn’t uncommon here. But they had already been buried when I learned of them, and in a place like this, the graveyard is closely watched in case the corpses make trouble. So I patrolled the town but…” He shrugged, sullen now. His failure was obvious, it didn’t need expounding on.

To his surprise, Jiang Wanyin didn’t criticize him; he only acknowledged it with a solemn nod.

“Since the destruction of Qishan Wen, we have been trying to re-establish ourselves in the lands that used to be ours,” he said instead, easily returning to their earlier topic. “It is a slow process. Our numbers are too few and even our well-tended Yunmeng marsh is overrun with resentful creatures after the Sunshot Campaign. But I’m…” He cut himself off, lips pressed together. He swallowed hard and for a moment, Wei Ying could have sworn he saw angry tears glistening in his eyes. “I’m trying.”

Before he knew it, Wei Ying was shifting. He placed his hand over the human’s and smiled gently when surprised dark eyes looked at him without a glare. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry that he had lost everything and everyone when Wei Ying knew what the pain of it felt like, and it had certainly taken him longer to stop running from his grief (if he ever had.) Sorry that he had thought he was only here for the money.

Wei Ying shouldn’t have felt protective of a cultivator, a sect leader of all people, and yet he couldn’t help the protective warmth he felt when Jiang Wanyin didn’t pull his hand away.

“You’re still my prime suspect,” he muttered.

“That’s fine,” Wei Ying said, smiling. “You haven’t seen me at my most convincing yet.”

He couldn’t hold on to his hand forever, much as he would have liked to, so he settled himself back into a sprawl. Closer now, though, close enough that his tail brushed against the man’s legs with every lazy swish.

“I did learn something,” he admitted and finally started recounting his information.

Hu Xun’s mention of the mysterious lover was the most valuable lead, but he had also learned a swathe of details about the everyday life of all three victims and everyone they interacted with regularly.

“I had several corpses dug up,” Jiang Wanyin offered. “There were three victims prior to Wu Ping, all within the last two months.”

Wei Ying’s face turned to stone. “Three,” he echoed. Who was the third, he wanted to ask, what had he overlooked? Whom had he overlooked, or discounted as too unimportant without ever being aware of it? He shook his head. “They kill too many. This…” His fingers tightened around the jar. His claws carved gouges into the glossy surface. “This is not what huli jing do. Not even the ones who cultivate by killing.”

“This is why I didn’t kill you tonight,” Jiang Wanyin said, and Wei Ying blinked in surprise. “The huli jing we are hunting has no restraint and doesn’t care if they attract attention. You lived here for nearly two years without incident.” A frown flickered over his face. “Of course, you didn’t arouse any suspicion at all. No lovers who grew weak and sickly, not even any gossip of abandoned places haunted by seductive maidens. You are very skilled at covering your tracks. Until you grew bored of playing only with the people of this town, maybe?”

“It’s because I cultivate with their breath!” Wei Ying snapped. It was his turn to glare. It figured that orthodox cultivators would read something nefarious even into a clean record. “You will find plenty of talk about wild animals breaking into houses starting two years ago. Seducing people gets too messy if you want to stay. Instead of taking the jing of men I have seduced, I take the excess qi from the breath of the locals while they sleep. It’s how I was taught to cultivate as a kit by my mother, and how she was taught by her master, the immortal fox Baoshan Sanren.”

“You don’t cultivate jing?” Jiang Wanyin asked, looking pointedly skeptical.

“If you were offering, I wouldn’t turn you down,” he retorted with a foxy grin and a coy swipe of his tail. Jiang Wanyin’s mortified sputtering did a lot to improve his mood, really. He was far too easily flustered for his own good. “I’m not saying I live like a chaste monk. But in an isolated small town like this… It gets messy. Humans can’t just enjoy a huli jing once, they become obsessive about us. It’s their obsession that drives them to return far more than any enchantment we weave. I prefer being two towns away by the time satisfied lovers realize they have become jilted ex-lovers. It’s not like I can explain that it would kill them if they stayed with me. There is screaming and tears, and then they get jealous when I find someone new. That’s too annoying.”

“Do you think I wouldn’t grow obsessed?” Jiang Wanyin asked. He sounded amused.

Wei Ying’s grin widened. “You would, but you’re a cultivator with a strong golden core and I’m only a hundred years old. You wouldn’t even miss the amount of energies I can cultivate.”

“The other huli jing takes enough to kill a common man.”

“That fox is old. Old and powerful and very greedy. Their cultivation is far higher than mine. But…” His claws twitched. “They…” He tapped a finger against his nose as he tried to find the words to make a human understand what exactly had him so unsettled. Huli jing were all the same in their eyes, preying on their precious energies to steal them for themselves, how to explain the difference? “It’s the way they do it. It’s too violent. It’s… Imagine that you hunted a tasty prey and made a little bit of a mess as you ate all the soft, squishy organs, or you made such a mess there are blood splatters all over the wall and guts clinging to the ceiling. Why would you even do that? These guts are the best part of the meal and now they are sticking to the ceiling!”

Jiang Wanyin grimaced.

Wei Ying pouted a little; it had been a brilliant analogy.

“The Yin Iron,” Jiang Wanyin said grimly. When Wei Ying just looked at him in question, he explained, “Wen Ruohan had been cultivating the pieces for many years even before the war started. Then the deaths of the Sunshot Campaign made everything worse. Between the many deaths and the Yin Iron’s effect, corruption has spread everywhere, but especially in Qishan where he turned even his own peasants into puppet armies.”

Wei Ying hummed pensively. “The very best and strongest of us, they can cultivate solely by absorbing the environmental qi around them. They don’t need to steal the energy of other people. However, if such a fox were to cultivate in a place poisoned by that evil trinket, it would be like lapping up the poison. It could probably drive them mad. Or corrupt them. Or…” He waved the hand holding the alcohol around and then brought the jar to his lips. He needed a drink after that. The thought alone was enough to make him shudder, he really didn’t want to follow that train of thought any further.

“I don’t know about you,” Wei Ying said once he was suitably fortified with alcohol, “But I’ve had enough of glum thoughts for tonight. Either drink with me or let me go so I can find someone who will.”

Jiang Wanyin wore a complicated expression on his face and Wei Ying was sure he would either demand they keep working or leave. In the end, he rummaged around for another jar of baijiu and handed it to Wei Ying.

He grinned, showing his fangs. “Look at you. What a gentleman.”

The snort and eyeroll it got him was adorable. He really would miss Jiang Wanyin when he left, the town was a lot more interesting with him in it.

“You’re already making me pay. So drink.”

Chapter Text

Despite his words, Jiang Wanyin didn’t stay much longer. Wei Ying didn’t miss that he circulated his qi to keep himself sober.

Wei Ying slipped back into his fully human shape and went to sleep right there in the private room, though the twin worries of the cultivators and the other huli jing continued to weigh heavily on his mind. It made for a very restless nap.

Jiang Wanyin didn’t seek him out in the morning as he had expected but in his disgruntled, sleepy state Wei Ying wasn’t particularly sorry about that either.

It wasn’t until noon that their paths crossed by the merchant stalls where they had first met and Wei Ying, mood much improved by now, sidled cheerfully to his side.

“Good morning, partner!” he chirped, and shoved a dumpling into his face. “I didn’t even lick it yet, I promise!”

Jiang Wanyin looked at him like a man who had never before considered that the dumpling might come pre-licked and had just had a whole horrifying world of possibilities opened to him.

Wei Ying beamed.

“Where are we investigating today?” he kept going, pretending not to notice the looks and whispers of the three Yunmeng disciples that had been tailing Jiang Wanyin.

“You will be going with us, Wei-qianbei,” the stern, short woman in the middle spoke up.

“You told them about me?” Wei Ying affected a swoon. “I’m touched!” He was genuinely surprised, though, all melodrama aside. When Jiang Wanyin didn’t seek him out, he had assumed the talk of working together had been nothing but a ploy to get him to share what he had learned. This human kept surprising him.

Since Jiang Wanyin had still not taken the dumpling so generously offered to him, Wei Ying took a bite out of it. Mouth full and chewing, he said, “But I’m not going with you. I have to protect Jiang-zongzhu from getting ravished by a terrible fox.”

Jiang Wanyin made the funniest little choking noise; it took all of Wei Ying’s self-control to stifle his snickers.

“Wei Ying!” he barked.

Wei Ying tapped a finger against his nose, all thought. “It just occurred to me that you keep calling me by my birth name like we are familiar – which we are! – but you introduced yourself only with your courtesy name. Your birth name is Jiang Cheng, isn’t it?” There had been plenty of gossip about the cultivators in the wine house and Wei Ying had listened attentively.

“You can’t call zongzhu by his birth name!” the shorter female disciple protested.

“Jiang Cheng,” he said again, testing the name on his tongue, and nodded, satisfied. “I like it.” His face lit up with mischief. “But if you don’t, I can call you Chengcheng instead!”

All four Yunmeng Jiang cultivators looked horrified. Teasing humans continued to be the very best entertainment!

“Stop antagonizing Tang Yun,” Jiang Wanyin – no, Jiang Cheng said when he recovered first. He grabbed Wei Ying once again by the arm and hauled him away. He seemed to be fond of that and now that he wasn’t in any imminent danger of being skinned, Wei Ying didn’t mind it at all.

“No need to bully me, we can talk about the investigation now that I have made you blush.” He stuffed the last of his dumpling into his mouth, not willing to risk it getting confiscated, and asked between chewing, “You said there was a fourth victim.”

Which, of course, led them to revisit the full list of victims and talk in detail about each of them. Jiang Cheng – what a cute name! – volunteered his own information readily enough in the light of day, while last night he had only been interrogating Wei Ying. It was another little way in which he needed to revise his opinion of the cultivator, these kept piling up.

Like Wei Ying, all three earlier victims lived outside of the town proper, two of them struggling to maintain small farms after they had lost their families, while the third was a widowed woodcutter.

“Huang-shushu doesn’t fit,” Wei Ying protested.

Jiang Cheng seemed to have resigned himself to his partner-in-crime; the Yunmeng Jiang disciples had left to pursue other tasks while he was now leading Wei Ying to the woodcutter’s house.

“The others could have fallen prey to the huli jing while they were drunk, but that uncle lived like a monk. You said he had been sick, too. Why would a murderous, rampaging huli jing pick someone who was already weak and frail, or be such a hassle to seduce?”

“This is what I want you to tell me.”

Wei Ying pouted. “If I’d known you would put me to work, I’d have made you buy me a meat skewer first.”

If there had ever been anything to find in the woodcutter’s hovel, the evidence was long gone by now. The out-of-the-way hut had been picked clean by thieves, even the nicer beams of wood carried away, and all that remained was rotting debris.

It was another dead end, just like when Wei Ying had investigated the other huts, even if this one came with more mildew buildup to make his nose itch.

“I will ask around,” Wei Ying said as they started to make their way back. It was a picturesque forest path they were taking; it looked very much like the one leading to his own hut though he lived south of the town and Huang-shushu had lived to the north of it, in the direction of Qishan. If it weren’t for their conversation topic, he could have pretended they were simply taking a nice stroll. “He didn’t drink or gamble, so that won’t help, but I believe Lao Zhao would buy his timber sometimes. He should know more than he would have told an outsider.”

He could feel Jiang Cheng’s eyes on him as he grudgingly said, “You aren’t useless.”

“Of course not. People like telling me things. I’m charming!”

“You’re a huli jing. It is your nature to lure humans.”

“And if I’m luring them into helping catch the serial murderer menacing their town, should I then not be praised for my brilliant luring skills?”

Jiang Cheng didn’t respond except for a scowl, which Wei Ying decided to take as a reluctant agreement.

The ground was soft and just a little bit damp still from last night’s rain. Wei Ying ached to run over it on paws. But he couldn’t. Chengcheng hadn’t murdered him on sight yet for being a huli jing. Now, if he revealed himself as the fox from the Wu estate, on the other hand… Admittedly, tampering with the evidence did look like something a killer would do.

“Tell me about the forests near Lotus Pier,” he said, not wishing to dwell on such glum thoughts any longer.

Jiang Cheng snorted, “What is your fascination with Lotus Pier?”

“Is it not your home? I believe to know what a man loves is to know him, too.”

“Very well,” Jiang Cheng agreed, once again surprising Wei Ying with how readily he went along with everything. Maybe, just maybe, he was enjoying Wei Ying’s company just as much as Wei Ying enjoyed his – and wasn’t this the oddest discovery of the day? “But if I tell you of Lotus Pier, you have to tell me about your home, too.”

Wei Ying’s smile grew brittle. “If I must. It is an equal exchange,” he admitted after a long moment of fighting with himself.

Fortunately, Jiang Cheng didn’t question his hesitation, he delved right into praising the bamboo forests near Lotus Pier with all the plants and animals they held. As he spoke, the lands near Lotus Pier came alive for Wei Ying. He could easily picture a much younger Jiang Cheng whose cheeks were round with baby fat exploring these forests, always accompanied by his three dogs. He mentioned his older sister and his martial siblings, too, though none of them stood out as a recurring partner in his adventures. Maybe it was him projecting his own lonely childhood, but Wei Ying got the impression that Jiang Cheng’s most faithful companions had been his pets.

“I don’t like being around dogs,” Wei Ying said, shuddering, “And not just because all huli jing fear dogs. Hungry street dogs and wolves have awful, huge teeth, and a fox kit is just the right size for a meal. I was already smarter, and they were just ordinary animals, but being smarter only helps you so much when you don’t have the powers to follow through.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t speak words of comfort, he only hummed in acknowledgment, yet he stepped closer and let his arm brush against Wei Ying’s as they walked.

“My family wandered but we spent most of our time north of the great sects’ territory. You still find more fox shrines there. The humans try to win us over with offerings so we will bless them with good health and wealth, or just so we won’t curse them. I once heard an old fox explain that your first chief cultivator had all the fox shrines in his sect’s territory burned, for he said it was disrespectful that people sought the protection of foxes rather than cultivators.”

“Not the first one, it was his son,” Jiang Cheng said quietly. “It happened not far away from here. The ancient borders of Qishan Wen are just north of here, maybe half a shichen by sword.” He threw Wei Ying a long, pointed sideways look and said, “So, your family wandered.”

He laughed, a little bit embarrassed that his attempt at a distraction was so easily perceived, but not overly bothered by admitting to the evasion itself. Jiang Cheng was easy to talk to, even when he didn’t want to talk about anything much at all.

“Yes. My mother, my father, and I. But they died when I was very young; then it was just me.” He shrugged and waved off his concerned look. “It got easier once I cultivated a human form. Humans don’t get chased for their meat or pelt as much as foxes.” Jiang Cheng just continued to look horrified, so he laughed louder and wrapped a companionable arm around his shoulders. “But the great Sandu Shengshou would never turn me into a fuzzy hand warmer, so I have nothing to fear now!” He reached around and poked his right hand with his own left, tangling his fingers with the thin chain connecting Zidian’s ring to its bracelet. “How did you get a naga weapon anyway?”

Jiang Cheng shrugged him off and brought half a step’s distance between them, his cheeks burning red. He cleared his throat and scowled at nothing as he struggled to regain his composure. Finally, when Wei Ying already thought he had forgotten the question or chosen to ignore it for the blatant distraction it was, he said, “It was my mother’s, and her mother’s before her. She promised she would tell me Zidian’s story when she passed it to me but…” He gritted his teeth and swallowed hard. He was still devastatingly pretty even when he looked so pained, but it made Wei Ying want to reach out and soothe the tension from his clenched jaw. “There was no time.”

“I know that feeling.”

They fell silent, a silence that didn’t feel tense or awkward or lonely, just… calm. It was a comforting kind of silence, like a gentle hug.

Jiang Cheng didn’t shy away when Wei Ying sidled closer once more, he even met him nearly halfway.

It was still a beautiful day, though their mood was somber now. For once, Wei Ying permitted himself to simply experience this solemnity and taste the flavor of old grief on his tongue instead of chasing it down with the closest distraction.

While they had snooped around the Huang hut, the disciples – Wei Ying made a mental note to ask for their names, and another to actually try and remember them – had tracked down another man close to Wu Ping, whom they would meet the following day.

On that day, Wei Ying came into town early so he could visit Old Zhao and ask him about Uncle Huang before he had to meet Jiang Cheng. It turned out to be a story like many here, of a man who was sickly and aged before his years, towards the end barely able to earn a living. Old Man Zhao had spent the entire visit ranting about him putting what little strength he had into visiting various shrines and temples to pray for healing instead of doing the sensible thing and leaving this accursed town behind. For all that the story wasn’t remarkable or particularly helpful except to confirm what they already knew, Wei Ying was still glad that he had taken the time to seek it out.

To be perfectly honest, he found himself annoyed that the cultivators’ investigation kept circling back to Wu Ping, while the other victims were just an afterthought. He wanted to believe it was simply because he was the most recent victim and the only one who hadn’t been a loner. He wanted to believe it wasn’t about the payment but… He had never thought highly of these ever-so-righteous cultivators.

The new witness turned out to be another well-off young master, who hadn’t wanted to get involved until twin pressure by the Wu family and Jiang disciples changed his mind. They met over lunch in the inn Wu Ping had died – a little bit macabre maybe but Wei Ying wasn’t complaining since it secured him a free lunch. Even if he would have preferred the meat raw.

“I know of his plans for that night because he was supposed to come gambling with me,” he said without preamble, waving around a fan in agitation. Young Master Hou didn’t even look at the veritable spread of the inn’s most expensive foods he had ordered, which was fine with Wei Ying since that left more for him. “He had promised to let me try and win back my horse before my parents noticed it’s gone but whenever I invited him, he would brush me off!” He snapped his fan closed and tapped it sharply against the table. “I wouldn’t let him get away with it this time, I told him straight to his face that my family has lived in this town for nine generations, and I won’t be disrespected! I mean, can you believe the impudence?!”

Wei Ying made a vaguely sympathetic noise to keep him going and shoveled more spicy venison into his mouth.

Jiang Cheng snapped, “I can’t believe you are wasting my time. You told Tang Yun that you had something worthwhile to say. If you called us here to cry about your gambling debts, I’m telling the Wu family that you have hindered our investigations.”

Wei Ying still had his mouth too full for a verbal protest, but he made a protesting whine and turned large, betrayed eyes on him. Even if cooked, the deer was so good! Couldn’t Jiang Cheng wait to get them kicked out until he had eaten his fill? When he only got an eyeroll in return, he flashed him a dramatic pout.

They might have kept up their non-verbal banter if not for the fan snapping open again and an alarmed cry of, “No, no, you misunderstand me! I wouldn’t, Jiang-zongzhu, I would never! He was meeting A-Fen!”

“Who the fuck is A-Fen?” Jiang Cheng barked, which had Wei Ying deciding that he should handle the gentle questioning in the future. He would be right onto that as soon as he was done eating.

The man looked like he was about to protest the rude treatment. Mouth already open, he took notice of Zidian sparking on Jiang Cheng’s hand and thought better of it. “A-Fen is one of Ling-furen’s girls, of course! Wu Ping said the old bat guarded her virtue like a hawk. But Wu Ping didn’t care to hear her play the erhu, naturally, and A-Fen had promised to sneak out and meet him at the inn that very night. I thought it was just an excuse, that he must have gambled away my horse already, which is why I didn’t speak up earlier. A-Fen is such a sweet girl, you see, and if the Wu family learned that he was at the inn because of A-Fen, they would blame her. Then they would make Ling-furen’s life hard, and she would punish A-Fen. I can’t let anything happen to A-Fen, you see?”

Wei Ying slowly lowered his chopsticks back to the bowl, though they still held his last piece of deer. There was a strange, intense light in the man’s eyes and he didn’t like it one bit. The back of his neck prickled with unease in the absence of fur to bristle.

“Did A-Fen tell you that?” he asked softly. “Did she ask you not to speak of her? That you must protect her?”

“She is such a sweet girl,” he said again.

Jiang Cheng looked like he wanted to ask more but Wei Ying placed his hand over his and shook his head.

“If there is a compulsion on him, it is better not to tamper with it,” he explained as they left the inn. “There is a chance A-Fen would sense it breaking.”

“That’s not her name,” Jiang Cheng grumbled.

“Of course not – but it’s better than to keep saying the huli jing, isn’t it? This huli jing doesn’t appreciate it.”

Wei Ying, who was chewing on the dessert he had swiped from the lavish table, was not surprised that Jiang Cheng ignored his protests. He was, however, not prepared for what he said next.

Which was, “We need to talk to Ling-furen. Do you know where we can find her?”

He choked on the last crumbs of the tiny cake and once he was done choking, he flashed Jiang Cheng his best mischievous, foxy grin. He had been fully prepared to handle that part of the investigation by himself but if Chengcheng insisted… What kind of fox would he be if he turned down some fun hand-delivered to him? The gods were truly smiling on him to gift him such an entertaining day. He would bet a stack of taels on Jiang Cheng being the easily flustered sort of young master.

In fact, he was so delighted that he moved in front of him, dancing backward as they walked, and crowed, “Are you sure you want to go? Right away?”

“Of course I want to go! This is our first true lead.” Frustration flickered over Jiang Cheng’s face. “I can’t wait to get back to real night hunts. This goose chase is ridiculous. Do I look like a magistrate?”

Sympathies all around, yes, of course, Wei Ying could very well understand the pain. This was why huli jing were very annoying to night hunt, and why they were such dangerous prey despite not being particularly martial creatures. They could be anything or anyone and a cultivator’s finely tuned senses and all their talismans and tools would never know until the huli jing was ready to confront them. Or until the huli jing dropped a transformed arrow right into their hands.

But that wasn’t important. Not when, “You said you want to go and now you can’t put the blame on me!”

With Wei Ying so enthusiastic that he once more wrapped an arm around his shoulder to steer him, suspicion grew in Jiang Cheng and had him stiffen under his touch. “Where are we going?”

Wei Ying laughed. “A teahouse, Chengcheng, just a teahouse! Would I ever take the great sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang anywhere disreputable?”

“This is not a teahouse,” Jiang Cheng hissed as soon as they were sat at the best table of the Palace of Flowers, Wei Ying still draped all over him like a particularly chattery fox stole.

“But it is a house, and they serve tea,” he shot back, cheerfully unruffled by Jiang Cheng’s adorable glare.

Honestly, the Palace of Flowers might not have been much by the standards of brothels in greater or wealthier cities. Wei Ying felt a little bit defensive of it, nevertheless. The food was tasty, the alcohol wasn’t watered down, and the beauties of the house had never looked down on him for not having all that much money to spend. So, what if it was an eyesore of faux gold and fake gems, with Madam Ling thinking that determined garishness could make up for the genuine splendor of wealthier houses? One day when he was stronger, Wei Ying would be able to illusion up an actual palace with nothing but a snap of his fingers. Such superficial things meant little to him.

“That’s not…!”  Jiang Cheng was looking constipated in a way Wei Ying was quickly learning meant he was flustered.

Wei Ying… Found himself feeling some ways about it. He had expected Jiang Cheng to blush and sputter because he knew cultivators to be weird about brothels in about the same way they were weird about huli jing. They were all a bunch of pearl-clutching, prudish hypocrites, considering even this little yao knew that the jianghu’s brothels had no better customer than the new chief cultivator. Yet their sort would miss no opportunity to sneer and condemn the same pretty flowers they indulged in, just as they only ever blamed the huli jing for the lust of the men obsessed with them. When he decided to bring Jiang Cheng here without telling him, he had thought it would be funny to scandalize him. And it was. It was funny. It just… stung at the same time in a way he didn’t like to examine too closely.

But he was fine with it, really, this was still hilarious.

What a silly little cultivator with his silly little prudishness, far too easy a target not to prank him. Wasn’t his own boss known as the greatest lecher in the jianghu? Why, with his reputation Wei Ying had imagined that half the cultivation conferences must be held in brothels, but maybe these high-and-mighty Daoist masters were too hypocritic even for that. Or maybe Jiang Cheng was just particularly shy.

But it was funny – which, naturally, meant that Wei Ying had to see how far he could push him.

“Yes, yes, it is, so cheer up. Stop scowling, or you will scare away all the pretty girls!” He heroically suppressed a snicker. If Jiang Cheng was flustered merely by sitting in the restaurant area of a brothel, then… Oh, this was going to be fun. Even though he already had an arm wrapped around Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, he leaned in even closer to pat his hand, which was curled into a fist on his lap. “Let gege do the talking for you, alright? You just sit here and look pretty. And pay the bill.”

It helped that the place wasn’t crowded yet – or whatever patrons were already here were in the private rooms rather than the public guest room. Only one table besides theirs was occupied; it held a group of men too busy talking and drinking to gawk at the cultivator amongst them. There weren’t even any musicians or actors on the small stage yet.

Once he caught sight of Madam Ling, he discreetly beckoned the elderly lady over and leaned towards her, all without ever releasing his hold on Jiang Wanyin.

“My favorite auntie is looking younger than ever today!” he chirped, all bright smiles. “You are the prettiest flower in this entire garden.” When she tittered, he leaned in even closer, his smile turning conspiratorial. “I hope I can trust your discretion. My friend here, he is terribly shy, you understand?”

Jiang Cheng made a strangled noise but he had been told to let Wei Ying do the talking and he seemed determined not to fail his task. Absolutely adorable.

“A handsome young hero like you has no need to be flustered, Jiang-zongzhu!”

Wei Ying nodded mock solemnly. “This is what I keep telling him, too! He is very handsome, isn’t he? Look at this pretty face.” He cupped Jiang Cheng’s chin and tilted it for Madam Ling’s appraisal, blissfully ignoring that Jiang Cheng looked utterly murderous. It was funny that he would think this was the worst of what Wei Ying could do. There was something about his blushing and the barely contained fury that loosened Wei Ying’s tongue and made him want to keep pushing. His tongue just kept moving, spewing words. “I’m lucky to have caught the eye of such a handsome cultivator. But there is only one of me, and you wouldn’t believe the stamina of these immortal masters…!”

“Wei Ying!” Jiang Cheng hissed. Amazing, now he looked even more murderous. What an astoundingly expressive face he had.

Wei Ying tutted. “See? I told you he's shy!”

“A-Fen,” Jiang Cheng ground out between gritted teeth. Wei Ying imagined he was holding in all his bellows and death threats by gritting his teeth. Poor teeth. “We want to talk to A-Fen.”

“Talk. Or talk.” Wei Ying waved a dismissive hand. “We were told you have a new flower in your garden, one with a special gift with the erhu, and A-Cheng is a great admirer of nimble fingers.”

As fun as watching Jiang Cheng was, most of Wei Ying’s attention had been on Madam Ling, while some went to the waiter serving the other group. He liked to believe he could see right through liars, even the good ones, for a master of his craft would know another.

Madam Ling looked amused by his antics, her guard lowered, hopefully too well-entertained by the spectacle of seeing one of the otherworldly immortal cultivators humbled for her enjoyment to question their motives just yet. But when Jiang Cheng gave the woman’s name, she only looked confused and a little bit disappointed, frustrated even. There was no concern, no alarm.

If this place held a girl named A-Fen, she ought to only be offered to them to play music and entertain, but testing for that part of the story was only a precaution for the unlikely case this girl existed at all.

“We have many beauties who would please the immortal master’s eyes and ears,” Madam Ling fawned, though Wei Ying knew her well enough to tell she was uncharacteristically clumsy about it. Good. This was going exactly as he had expected. Well, not good, exactly, but he liked being right.

“Ling da-niang must forgive me, but I’m afraid he has his heart set on A-Fen. And look at this face! How could I deny him anything? You will be compensated well for your troubles.”

Madam Ling’s smile froze for a moment. “Of course. I will have the boy take you.” She hurried away to whisper to the waiter.

Wei Ying leaned in close to Jiang Cheng, nuzzling his ear and whispering, “Play along. We want to talk unsupervised to whatever girl she passes off as A-Fen.”

Jiang Cheng didn’t even twitch when Wei Ying’s breath tickled his ear. He was perfectly still as if his entire self-control was going into the monumental effort required not to murder Wei Ying on the spot. Which, fine, if you were a prudish sect leader you would probably consider this a humiliation worthy of such dramatics, but Wei Ying wasn’t and he wasn’t sure what dear Jiang Wanyin had expected. Wei Ying had been nothing but chastely restrained with him, did he not deserve a little bit of mischief and wishful thinking, at the very least? How would he ever be able to handle what Wei Ying was when he couldn’t even handle this?

And yet… Throughout all this, throughout all the sting and this maddening drive to keep pushing, he couldn’t help but find himself a little bit impressed as well with how much Jiang Cheng prioritized their night hunt over his own pride.

The rumors Wei Ying had heard painted Sandu Shengshou simultaneously as the weakest, youngest, most inexperienced of the great sects' leaders and as a wrathful man with an unrestrained, terrifying temper. Wei Ying didn’t doubt that he had a temper, he had glimpsed it during their confrontation in the wine house. But going by his personality, he would have been surprised to find him incapable of self-restraint.

Wei Ying loved being right and he was proven right now as Jiang Cheng – no matter how furious he was, and he was, he was fuming – permitted the waiter to take them upstairs to a lavish private room, all without giving in to the urge to whip Wei Ying for his impudence.

In fact, his fearsome Sandu Shengshou suffered the embarrassment a little bit too well; Wei Ying found himself indignant on his behalf. Who dared to embarrass him often enough that he would have grown so skilled at swallowing down his anger and mortification? How dare they! Only Wei Ying was allowed to bully him.

He was still stewing in his righteous indignation when the door closed behind them.

Jiang Cheng turned to Wei Ying, his face white with fury. “I know this is all just a joke for you,” he snapped as he stepped close, apparently determined to menace Wei Ying with broad-shouldered fury as if he wasn’t shorter than him. “But I’m working hard every day to gain respect and trust, and you’re making me look like another Jin Guangshan! What do you think will happen when it gets back to the Wu family that I’m fooling around with village boys and prostitutes while they’re paying me to be night hunting! They will send my Yunmeng Jiang away in shame and call for real cultivators!”

This… was actually a good point. Wei Ying had wanted to mock him for that sanctimonious, prudish outrage cultivators all held to, and he would have had no sympathy if Jiang Cheng’s upset had revolved around that. But this…

“Oh,” Wei Ying breathed. Something twisted sickeningly in his belly, it felt suspiciously akin to guilt though Wei Ying made it a point to never feel guilty for a prank gone too far. All the petty, stung joy he had been feeling drained out of him as if a plug had been pulled, leaving him behind feeling like an empty barrel. He dropped his gaze, suddenly no longer amused by Jiang Cheng’s furious face. “I didn’t think of that,” he admitted quietly.

“You didn’t think at all!” Jiang Cheng barked, voice all icy, scathing judgment and that was so much worse than a nasty temper could have been.

“It was just some harmless fun! You fluster too easily!”

Of course, he had done it because it bothered him, too, knowing how narrow-minded cultivators tended to be. Petty little hypocrites, the whole lot of them. It was hard not to take it personally when he was a huli jing. So he had expected Jiang Cheng to be scandalized and indignant, and it would have been a right proper punishment to mock him and his precious pure reputation. It would have been funny. But how could he explain his actual reasoning now without making it worse?

“I’m not here to have fun!” Jiang Cheng yelled back, proving that he was indeed in no state to be receptive to explanations. “I’m trying to prove that my sect still has a right to exist in this world!”

If he hadn’t been empty yet, Wei Wuxian sure would have been feeling it now. He bit down on his bottom lip. Truth be told, it hadn’t even occurred to him that people could see this as Jiang Cheng pursuing pleasure when he should be pursuing business. He was a huli jing, people would call him lustful and mean it as condemnation no matter what he did; what did he ever need to consider reputation.

The door opened before Wei Ying could even so much as think about anything to say in response – a true mercy, for he had nothing to offer besides the heartache he felt at Jiang Cheng’s words.

The woman who joined them had pretty apricot eyes and a sensual mouth, and to Madam Ling’s credit, Wei Ying had never seen her before. Maybe she was new, or too expensive to be wasted on the riffraff getting drunk downstairs.

“A-Fen is here to serve the young masters.” She bowed to them with grace Wei Ying could never hope to match, her voice was pitched mild and alluring without being cloying. She even carried an erhu with the confidence of someone who knew how to play it.

Wei Ying could have had his fun toying with both of them. Only, now that he felt guilty instead of delighted for mortifying Jiang Cheng, this game had thoroughly lost its shine. Besides, he didn’t like to think of pitching his own crude prank against her poise, or how harshly Jiang Cheng would judge him for it. No, he just wanted to be done here so he could mend fences with him, or alternatively, get drunk until he could see the humor again.

He pulled out a hefty ring of silver coins and placed it on the table with a clank.

“If you tell us the truth, this is for you – for you to keep, separate from what we owe this house for your time. But my friend is an immortal cultivator, he will know if you lie.”

Chapter Text

After all his excitement about this visit to the Palace of Flowers, it ended with Wei Ying stifling a sigh of relief when they stepped back onto the street. He watched Jiang Cheng from the corner of his eyes, hoping to find his face smoothed back into an amiable sort of scowl, their quarrel left behind at the scene of the crime.

One glance was enough to tell him it wouldn’t be so easy. His shoulders slumped. So much for his hopes of simply moving on without needing to acknowledge his misstep any further. Silver-tongued as he was, he had never been much for apologies.

“Let me take you somewhere we can talk about what we learned,” he offered, his voice quiet and about as solemn as he could get. In a peace offering, he didn’t even try to reach for Jiang Wanyin, he just walked half a step ahead to guide the way.

He took them to the inn where Wu Ping had died, which had a nice sloping roof that was hard to observe from the street while providing a solid view on most of the town. It also happened to be perfect for sunbathing at this time of the day. That it was just one leap down from here to buy them two jars of wine was only another perk.

Honestly, he was surprised once again by Jiang Wanyin that for all his anger, he didn’t storm off or refuse his suggestion. He was just sullen and taciturn, and he remained so even when he accepted the wine.

“None of the pieces fit together,” Wei Ying huffed once he was sprawled out, pointedly forgoing the chance of further teasing in another peace offering.

Jiang Cheng hummed in acknowledgment, though he kept silently scowling into the distance. He hadn’t uncorked his jar yet.

He gave his nose a thoughtful tap as he thought out loud. “So, A-Qiang confirmed that there is no A-Fen at the Palace of Flowers, as I had expected. A brothel is too obvious for a huli jing trying to disguise herself; even a regular human beauty too pretty or popular is always just one step away from being accused of being a huli jing. But neither she nor I have ever seen any of the other dead men there, they were far too poor to afford the Palace of Flowers even just for a drink. It’s almost as if she only snuck in there to lure Wu Ping… but why?” He shook his head, feeling as irritated as if he had a fly buzzing around his foxy ears. “Such an old and powerful huli jing doesn’t need to fawn over some small-town little master, she could illusion up ten times the riches he can gift her. And even if she did, why would she work so hard, only to kill him instead of making use of his money?”

“Maybe she lost control?”

Wei Ying gave his nose another tap and mulled on it for a while before he shrugged. “That shouldn’t happen to someone her age, even with a human as annoying as that one, but if the Yin Iron corrupted her… Maybe.”

“Does it even matter?” Jiang Cheng huffed, once more all scowls. Even beyond being upset with Wei Ying’s behavior, which he understood even if he still thought humans very silly for their weird standards, Jiang Cheng seemed to have taken it as some sort of personal insult that they’d run into yet another dead end. “I don’t need to know her reasons. I just need to find her and finish her off.”

“But…! Doesn’t it matter at all?” Wei Ying sat up and stared at him. After everything, he genuinely couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What if she had her reasons!”

“You can play sleuth all you like, but I’m on a night hunt.”

“And this means it doesn’t matter?” he insisted. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much but… He had thought Jiang Wanyin to be different. Better. To care about the who and why and not just the trophies or the fame. He didn’t know when he had started to think of him as being better than that, but it stung to be proven wrong, and frankly, it made him angry – even if maybe more at himself, for ever expecting better of him in the first place. He knew what cultivators were like. He knew that they were all the same. “You’re supposed to care!”

“People have died!” Jiang Cheng shot back, not even needing to pause and think about it, “At this point, no, her reasons don’t matter anymore.”

“Would you kill me, if you suspected me?” Wei Ying blurted out before he could stop himself. As soon as the question was spoken, he wanted to cringe at how childish it was. He wished he could take it back but now all he could do was cling to his jar of alcohol and brace himself for the answer he was guaranteed to receive.

What he got instead wasn’t actually any better.

It would have hurt to hear Jiang Cheng say yes but when he snorted and said, “As long as it’s not you, you don’t need to worry about that”, he didn’t feel any better about it.

Wei Ying drank, mostly because he didn’t know how to respond. Oh, he had a lot to say about humans and cultivators and hypocrisy, but he couldn’t afford to get himself kicked out of the investigation, or even worse, have Jiang Cheng chasing after him again. Especially not now, now that he knew he might not… He shied away from the thought. Not scared, no, he was far too clever to be trapped by silly little humans with their silly little arrays and talismans, playing at cultivation when theirs was like the toy of a toddler compared to what huli jing could do. No, not scared of him but… Scared of the hurt. Scared of the betrayal he knew he would feel. Which was silly, of course, since Jiang Wanyin and his Yunmeng Jiang had never promised him anything but…

Maybe he was just a very stupid fox, for all that he was far too clever for these humans.

Jiang Cheng was called away by his disciples soon after, which left Wei Ying feeling about equal measures relieved and disappointed about being alone once more. It had been impossible to restore the mood after their too-honest spat and truth be told, he hadn’t been eager to make the effort, either.

He was tired of always being the one to try, he thought sullenly as he tinkered away in his burrow, trying to come up with a new array that would strengthen his ability to sense other huli jing.

He could have worked on a more generalized detection or reveal talisman, but even though his talismans were activated specifically with his huli jing qi and he didn’t think a human would be able to use them, he still felt uneasy now with Jiang Wanyin getting his hands on anything he might adapt to use against his kind.

It was an uncharitable thought, he knew this, and maybe even undeserved, but he was also tired of always making an effort to assume the best of Jiang Wanyin when he was… Well, when his trying simply amounted to not killing Wei Ying where he stood.

Grumpy as he was, he wasn’t pleasantly surprised at all when his newly fine-tuned wards informed him of someone approaching his hut – a cultivator, at that, which narrowed his list of suspects down to the person he wanted to see second-least right now.

He used the extra time the forewarning gave him to be particularly meticulous in checking and rechecking that his burrow was well-hidden, though the knock on the door sounded before he could descend into searching his hut for anything conspicuous laying around.

How had he been able to remain so unconcerned the last time Jiang Wanyin visited?

“Sandu Shengshou,” he greeted and took some satisfaction from the crease forming between his eyebrows.

Jiang Wanyin stood there, somehow too awkward to cross the threshold until he realized that Wei Ying wouldn’t be inviting him inside without further explanation. “You said you have tea,” he said, then promptly winced, as if he had realized this explanation was exactly as awkward as his silence.

Despite his best efforts not to, Wei Ying found himself softening. Oh, but he was pathetic. What kind of fox was he even? He had all the brains of a hamster yaoguai. “I have osmanthus cakes, too.” A particularly stupid, masochistic hamster yaoguai.

Wei Ying brewed the tea and brought out the box with tiny, pretty osmanthus cakes he had absolutely not bought in the fanciful hope that a certain someone would visit him again. Then, on second thought, he placed a jug of good rice wine on the table as well. The liquor suited him far better than the tea, but Jiang Cheng had said he was here for tea, so…

He flopped down across from him with his legs crossed and elbows propped up on his knees, his chin on his folded hands. It was time to stop being an embarrassment and be himself. With that thought, he released the hold he had on his powers and let his fox features show on this humanoid body he had cultivated with his own hard work. It was something to be proud of and he was proud of it, he wouldn’t keep hiding it when there was no need to, and if Jiang Wanyin didn’t like that… Well, his bad. The fox, the man, the half-form, they were all him in some way, but Jiang Wanyin needed the reminder and so did he. Besides, he liked it better when his tail and ears were out; without them, he was missing half his body language.

And since he had determined he would be himself, he opened bluntly with, “So. Why are you here?”

“I can leave!” Jiang Cheng bristled. He looked so pretty when he was bristling, flustered, and a little bit insecure. It made Wei Ying feel things. Things like a very strong urge to bite his adorably scrunched nose and kiss his flushed cheeks and also things like yanking off his clothes and dragging him to his bed.

Admittedly, he always wanted to seduce him; this was more of a permanent state of being ever since he had first laid eyes on this prettiest cultivator, but still. He wanted to seduce him for feelings reasons now, not just because he was pretty and a sumptuous feast of jing. Wei Ying really was the dumbest fox ever.

“I wanted your tea,” Jiang Cheng insisted mulishly once he had composed himself. He cradled his cup with both hands as if he expected Wei Ying to fight him for it. “And the osmanthus cakes.”

“You didn’t even know I have osmanthus cakes,” Wei Ying pointed out just because he could, which obviously meant he must – yet another way in which he was his own worst enemy tonight.

“I…” Jiang Cheng cut himself off, jaw clenched so hard it looked painful. He swallowed hard and Wei Ying would be a liar if he said his eyes didn’t track the bob of his Adam’s apple, or that he didn’t want to lick it. Jiang Cheng took a deep breath and only looked even more constipated at the end of it. “I wanted… I needed to explain myself.”

Wei Ying’s ears pricked. “How exciting! I have never gotten an apology from a cultivator before!”

Whoops, and now Jiang Cheng looked like he wanted to whip him. They were both really doing their best to do their worst tonight, huh?

But he had said what he said, so all he could do now was dig his heels in and run with it. Wei Ying flashed him his best obnoxious, toothy grin and asked innocently, “Or have you come to walk into the huli jing’s lascivious trap? If you have, you are just in the right place, nobody can beat me at lasciviousness!”

Jiang Cheng’s murder face got even darker for a moment and then, miraculously, his tense body unclenched, and a smile curled the corners of his kissable lips. “At ridiculousness, maybe,” he scoffed, sounding far fonder than he should after knowing Wei Ying for mere days.

His heart fluttered a little bit with the prospect that Jiang Cheng might be feeling the same strange, illogical connection that made him feel like this man was so much more to him than the almost-a-stranger he ought to be.

“But it’s working, isn’t it?” Wei Ying shot back because he clearly possessed neither common sense nor self-preservation, or even tactical seduction skills. Except he didn’t even want to. He could have ensnared Jiang Cheng until all he could see was Wei Ying – but that was for hunting. When he actually liked someone, he wanted them to see the real him and like him back. He fluffed his tail in playful bragging and lifted a finger. “Admit it, you find me irresistible!”

Jiang Cheng’s pretty face was very red by now, which only made him cuter. “I find you insufferable,” he insisted. He scowled. “Which is strange in itself. You should be irresistible to me. Isn’t that how huli jing work?” He wrinkled his nose. “Are you that bad at being a huli jing?”

“I’m not bad at it!” Wei Ying cried, all wide-eyed offense and, well, also a little bit genuinely offended. That was rude. “Don’t blame me for you being weird!” He huffed and leaned forward, his arms crossed on the table. “There’s something very wrong with you. I lure people in, that comes naturally. I can’t be bad at it. But usually, I… My instincts guide me towards what will make me appealing to them even when I don’t use my powers to actively entice them. But when I’m with you, I’m just being myself!” More himself than he normally was around humans, even.

“Are you saying that I’m attracted to you being dumb and obnoxious!”

They just sat there, Wei Ying pointedly looking at Jiang Cheng as he waited for him to catch on to what he had just admitted. His smile grew very foxy and very predatory indeed as he watched the realization dawn on Jiang Cheng. The mortification shining in his widening brown eyes was nothing short of delicious.

Jiang Cheng abruptly moved to stand up.

“Don’t go,” he said, hand darting out to grasp his wrist. He was going to flee, Wei Ying would guess, since he didn’t strike him as the type who would lash out in mortified anger. With words, yes, but not with his whip, not when it was a personal insult instead of an insult to his sect.

Jiang Cheng tensed and aimed his fierce scowl at him, but he neither shook off Wei Ying’s hand nor did he make any further attempts to get up. “Give me a reason to stay.”

Oh. All of a sudden, it was Wei Ying’s turn to feel flushed; he wondered if Jiang Cheng even realized the innuendo you could read into that. If Wei Ying had been any other fox, he would have leaped on the opportunity. But his gut feeling told him that if he pushed further now, he would only spook Jiang Cheng. He didn’t think he would mind being hunted, he might even enjoy it, but Wei Ying was a huli jing and that meant his seduction attempts were always under suspicion. If Jiang Cheng felt that he was being manipulated, let alone if he feared Wei Ying using his powers to bend him to his will, he would bolt.

“You still owe me an apology.”

Jiang Cheng blinked.

“You came here to apologize,” Wei Ying reminded him. He crossed his arms behind his head and lazily stretched out his legs. “We got all the way to… Hmm, let me think.” A hum, a thoughtful tap against his nose. “No, we didn’t get anywhere with that before we got distracted by bickering.”

Strange, contrary, fascinating human that he was, Jiang Cheng relaxed at this demand. “Right.” His fingers drummed out a quick, sharp rhythm on the table. It obviously cost him a lot of willpower, but he made sure to meet Wei Ying’s eyes. “I was frustrated by the lack of progress. This is why I lashed out at you.” When Wei Ying remained expectantly silent, he swallowed hard. “And I shouldn’t have.”

“And you shouldn’t have implied you would hunt me down,” Wei Ying offered helpfully.

“No.” Now they both blinked at one another. Jiang Cheng, no, Jiang Wanyin the sect leader, lifted his chin in defiance. “If you went around the jianghu murdering people to improve your cultivation, I would hunt you down. I do hunt people like that, humans and non-humans alike. I’m not going to wait until another demonic cultivator or yaoguai grows to Wen Ruohan’s strength. I won’t apologize for that. But you have given me no reason to suspect you. I showed myself ungrateful for your help; if it had been one of my disciples, I would have chided them for shaming Yunmeng Jiang.”

It wasn’t the apology Wei Wuxian had expected, it wasn’t even one he wanted – but for all that, it felt far more genuine than the pretty, contrite, empty words he had expected.

“I can accept this as an apology, as long as you don’t believe all huli jing to be malicious.”

Jiang Cheng bristled. “Everybody knows huli jing can be benevolent or malicious, even the same one can swing back and forth. What kind of shit cultivator do you take me for?”

“Remember your words,” Wei Ying just said. Meanwhile, he remembered that they had alcohol, so he poured them both a cup. “I’ll tell you, I’m not fond of another huli jing preying on my humans, either.” His voice, along with his mood, darkened as he dwelled on this thought. “This is my town. Foxes are territorial. I’m not going to stand by and let my people be picked off like chickens.”

As he spoke, Wei Ying was hit by the realization that he meant it – or rather, the earnestness with which he meant it. He had patrolled his town, he had snooped around, but he hadn’t really dwelled on his actions. It was only Jiang Cheng that got him thinking about it, the presence of these cultivators disturbing his life of leisure made it impossible not to dwell on it. And yes, he had been distracted while he was more worried about the cultivators hunting him than about the other fox hunting his humans. But there was something about what Jiang Cheng had said that resonated with him and reminded him that the cultivators weren’t the root of the problem – at least not the imminent one, though they were ultimately to blame if A-Fen had been corrupted by their Yin Iron.

“This is my territory,” he repeated, mostly to strengthen his own conviction. He picked up his cup and downed it in one go, not even waiting to salute Jiang Cheng. “I’m a friendly sort of fox. I like naps in the sun, or naps on wildflower meadows, long nights in the wine house getting drunk and playing dice, and hunting delicious pheasants. I wouldn’t fight if given the choice. But I’m not going to let anyone walk over me, either.” He poured another cup, his grip on the jar white-knuckled. “If it were just me, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m only 100 years old. But…” He looked up, meeting Jiang Cheng’s eyes. “I’m not alone, am I?”

“No, you’re not.”

This time, they drank together.

Chapter Text

Another day, another meeting with Jiang Cheng’s chiseled cheekbones and the rest of him, which he wouldn’t mind ogling either.

And yet…

“Are you just going to do that all day?” Wei Ying pouted, gesturing at the array the cultivators were drawing in cinnabar on a crossroads where two busy streets met, their sect leader’s hawk-eyed supervision never faltering. Sure, seeing Yunmeng Jiang’s array work up close was interesting enough, but now that he was here, he found himself strangely disappointed that he wouldn’t be spending the day snooping around with Jiang Cheng again. In fact, he was barely getting any attention at all and it was far more frustrating than he cared to admit. “Just watching is going to get boring.”

Jiang Cheng shot him a sharp look. “I told you I would be trying a cultivator approach today. You insisted on following me.”

“I was expecting the cultivator approach to involve a little bit more doing things and less standing around watching you work! Aren’t you lot constantly running around on your night hunts, bullying yao left and right?” Not that this was the real issue here.

He loved arrays, talismans, formations, everything where you could dig deep into the theories of cultivation but were also free to experiment and follow your gut feeling. Being reduced to the role of a spectator in something he was so passionate about was annoying. Then again, did he trust Jiang Cheng and his disciples enough to reveal his hidden strength? Did he want to help them make advancements they would use to hunt other yaoguai in the future? Once Jiang Cheng knew what to look for, he might be able to uncover the protections on his burrow.

But watching them was boring and the children were drawing the arrays sloppily! He couldn’t even chide them without giving away his expertise.

“You know this town best,” Jiang Cheng said. He leaned in close to him, speaking in a familiar murmur even as his eyes remained on the array his disciples were drawing. Wei Ying took some validation from the increasingly displeased lines around his mouth. “While they work, you and I will be drawing a map and determining the best places in and around town for further arrays. We are planning arrays to detect and trace or to trap, though it is unlikely the latter will be able to hold her for long.” He gave a loud scoff and raised his voice to address his disciples, “And you will start over from scratch. Is that seal script or the footprint of a drunken duck?”

Wei Ying snickered. “Don’t be so serious, Jiang-zongzhu. They are working hard.” His grin turned mischievous. “And it doesn’t look like the footprints of a drunken duck… but I did once see a scribbling monkey whose papers looked a lot like this array!”

The dirty looks the Yunmeng Jiang disciples sent him only made him grin wider, and more jauntily. He was right and they knew it, as their lack of verbal protests proved.

“Worry not,” he told them, “I’ll steal your sect leader away so he can’t criticize you.”

“I…!”

He gripped Jiang Cheng’s elbow with both hands and gently but firmly started to steer him down the street. “Stealing you away now, Jiang-zongzhu.”

Much to his surprise, Jiang Cheng permitted it. He didn’t even put up all that much token resistance and what blustering there was sounded surprisingly cheerful.

They returned to the wine house and the private room they had used before, now armed with a stack of writing materials the boss had eagerly provided for them. It turned out he had been very generously compensated for the broken furniture. Knowing his personality, Wei Ying would bet he was hoping there would be another occasion for such generous compensation.

They spent a good shichen with their heads tucked together over large sheets of paper while they created hand-drawn maps and worked out the specific arrays that would be needed for each place.

Wei Ying was aware that his questions and suggestions were giving away far too much but as time passed, it became ever harder to contain his enthusiasm. He was having far too much fun to keep playing clueless on topics that were so dear to his heart.

They had lunch there before they continued with the second step, which was visiting all the places they had discussed.

“I still say it’s more likely the arrays will be triggered by random yao, or even by your own cultivators,” Wei Ying argued once again, though he wasn’t particularly bothered by what he considered a waste of time. The other huli jing wouldn’t kill while the cultivators were in town, she might even have been run off already. There was no reason not to enjoy more time with Jiang Cheng, especially time alone with him. “But there is no harm in trying it.”

“We know the killer is a nine-tailed fox. I saw it at the Wu estate when it tried to tamper with the corpse. She didn’t know I had already finished examining it. Nine-tails are so hard to catch, never mind fight, we have to try everything we have at our disposal, no matter how far-fetched.”

Lead settled in Wei Ying’s belly. He had always known Jiang Cheng must have made that assumption, he had just been a coward and didn’t want to get it confirmed.

“Are you sure?” he asked hesitantly. “About her being a nine-tails?”

“Of course I’m sure! I know what I saw! I chased that fox through town.” His jaw clenched. “But I lost it. I wasn’t fast enough, or I could have ended it right then and there.”

“Yes, but. Are you sure it was the huli jing we are searching for?” he insisted, though he was painfully aware of how risky this line of questioning was. He just couldn’t help himself, much as with giving away too much about his skills.

“It was a nine-tailed fox, and I caught it at the open coffin! The murdering fox is strong enough that it must be a nine-tails. How likely is it for a small backwater town to have more than one nine-tails?” He scoffed, glaring at Wei Ying in scorn, lips pulling back into a vicious sneer. “Why, are you saying it was you?”

“No! Of course not! I told you, I’m only a hundred years old!” The words were out before he could even think about them, before he could think about the weight of the lie he had just committed to. So far, he had only lied by omission - now, though, he was fully committed, fully trapped in it. All because he didn’t want Jiang Cheng to look at him in renewed suspicion.

It wasn’t completely a lie, he told himself, trying to find some comfort in this though he knew it wouldn’t make a difference to Jiang Cheng. But it wasn’t a complete lie. He had nine tails as a fox, but he wasn’t a nine-tails. He was no 900-year-old fox just short of cultivating to immortality, he merely had his mother’s powers locked within him, her dying gift. But he couldn’t even use them, so should it really matter? It shouldn’t – but something told him Jiang Cheng wouldn’t agree.

All of a sudden, the delicious lunch weighed like a stone in Wei Ying’s belly and even the sun didn’t strike him as quite so bright and cheerful anymore.

And then, as if truly everything had conspired against him, Jiang Cheng grasped his shoulder and made him turn towards him, made him look at him, and earnestly, so very earnestly and tenderly told him, “I know. Please understand that I don’t doubt your word.”

“I…” I’m sorry was on the tip of his tongue and so was the whole miserable misunderstanding, but he couldn’t. Not when Jiang Cheng was looking at him with such tenderness. It was selfish and most certainly foolish, waiting would only make things worse, and yet… He couldn’t bring himself to destroy the tenderness in Jiang Cheng’s eyes.

When Wei Ying stayed quiet, a flush crept up above Jiang Cheng’s collar. He hastily turned away and sped ahead.

With a yip of alarm, Wei Ying rushed to catch up to him.

Jiang Cheng smiled when he fell back into step with him and in this moment, Wei Ying couldn’t regret his decision to stay silent.

Wei Ying honestly couldn’t believe his luck. Showing Jiang Cheng around town under the guise of good array locations had already made for a wonderful afternoon, he hadn’t expected to get another day with just the two of them. But here they were, and this time, they would be in the forest all day while the Yunmeng Jiang disciples painted the arrays according to yesterday’s planning session.

Forest meant Wei Ying was free to show his actual cultivated humanoid body, fuzzy ears, bushy tail, and the rest instead of the fully human face he showed in town.

It was hard not to skip with every second step, but his tail wagged happily behind him and he didn’t even try to restrain it.

“Tell me about Lotus Pier,” he prompted in-between wandering around, sniffing at the flowers of a rhododendron bush here and kicking up some fallen sticks there.

Unlike every other time, Jiang Cheng didn’t delve eagerly into vivid descriptions of his home. He lifted his chin and met Wei Ying’s eyes, looking like he was steeling himself and challenging him all at once. “If you are so curious, why don’t you see for yourself!”

Wei Ying’s heart stuttered. “You would have me visit Lotus Pier?”

A scowl flickered over Jiang Cheng’s face. “Shouldn’t foxes have good ears? You heard me the first time.”

For a moment, they simply stood there, meeting one another’s eyes. Jiang Cheng’s shone with a challenge.

“Of course I will visit!” he cried happily, a bright smile lighting up his face. The smile remained – frozen into place – even as it hit him suddenly that Jiang Cheng still didn’t know. Would he still want him at Lotus Pier if he knew Wei Ying was the nine-tailed fox from the Wu estate? That he had let him believe a lie? No, he didn’t want to think about this now. He wanted to cling to the warm, happy feeling bubbling away in his belly.

“I’ll catch pheasants for you every day!” he went on, maybe a little bit too upbeat in his efforts to pull himself away from dark thoughts. “I’m the best pheasant hunter you have ever seen, they don’t stand a chance against me.” He hummed a little to himself and on a whim, he draped an arm over Jiang Cheng’s shoulders to walk half hanging off him. “But you have all these lakes. I could try to catch fish, too.”

Jiang Cheng shot him a pointedly incredulous look from the corner of his eyes, yet he didn’t protest the arm, nor did he shrug it off. No, he simply made sure to walk in sync with Wei Ying. “Didn’t you say you don’t like getting wet?”

“I don’t! But catching fish to impress you is different.”

Jiang Cheng snorted. “Are you sure you are a cultivating fox and not a cat? You sound like a cat, offering to bring me chewed-on mice.”

Wei Ying gave an offended yip. “I would never gift you a mouse!” His tail brushed against the small of Jiang Cheng’s back, even curling around his waist for a particularly daring moment. “My presents are far more impressive. That’s why foxes are better than boring old cats.” He raised a finger into the air and took on the tone of one of these stern, old Confucian scholars teaching the town’s well-off children. “Listen well, Sandu Shengshou, as I advise you on the superiority of foxes.”

Much to his delight, Jiang Cheng did listen with great conscientiousness, nodding in all the right places and making agreeing noises as Wei Ying expounded on the many virtues of the vulpine kind. He didn’t speak much of huli jing, specifically, not wanting to remind him of their solemn reason for this walk in the forest or of all the reasons cultivators held suspicion against huli jing, but he did make sure to clarify that naturally, cultivating foxes were also far superior to all other cultivating animals.

“Don’t listen to the snakes, they are putting on airs because one of theirs is popular with the storytellers right now. That’s just a fad.”

“Be wary of snakes and all others bragging that they are the best, except when it is foxes, who are the best,” Jiang Cheng concluded, his body relaxed and his face soft, wearing a sweet smile Wei Ying ached to kiss. “Noted.”

“Zongzhu is very smart!”

To be perfectly honest, Wei Ying hadn’t been too interested in the nitty-gritty details of the whys and hows of their field trip, he had just assumed Jiang Cheng was using the excuse of more pointless but enjoyable cultivator tasks to spend time with him. Jiang Cheng seemed like the kind of person who couldn’t let himself simply take a day off and bask in the sun, he would need to make excuses to fool himself if nobody else, and Wei Ying wasn’t in any hurry to ruin that for him.

Now, though, Jiang Cheng extricated himself from Wei Ying’s grip and stepped towards a cluster of trees that didn’t look much different from any others to ordinary human eyes.

“Look at these claw marks,” Jiang Cheng murmured as he crouched down by one tree, then traced marks higher on the trunk of another tree.

Wei Ying pouted at being so abruptly ignored. What happened to flirting, or to Jiang Cheng praising the superiority of foxes? “That’s not our quarry. I don’t smell fox.” He took another sniff and wrinkled his nose. “Smells like a tiger. They’re all stupid brutes.”

Jiang Cheng – pretty, grumpy, woefully distracted Jiang Cheng – shot him an irritated scowl over his shoulder. “I’m still a righteous cultivator. I have to pay attention to all yao in my territory.” And then he went right back to studying the claw marks on the trees and rummaging around the inside of a sleeve for a stash of pre-written talismans.

This…  this wasn’t fair! Stupid cats, hogging everyone’s attention even in their absence. What was so great about cats anyway?

But, well, he could work with this. Jiang Cheng was the most fun to tease when he was trying very hard not to let himself get teased. Wei Ying could definitely work this in his favor to earn one of his adorable little blushes.

“Does Jiang-zongzhu like tigers better than foxes now?” he asked playfully as he remained very sticky, shadowing Jiang Cheng while he went from tree to tree attaching the talismans.

Wei Ying kept glancing at the talismans, curious about them even as the gross of his attention remained on Jiang Cheng. There was everything from tracers to talismans to help him date the residual energy, some of which he had never seen before. What a resourceful cultivator. If only he could trust him, they would have such fun talking shop.

Wei Ying’s tail wagged behind him in gleeful anticipation as every tree got him closer to his quarry. “If it is so, this humble fox will have to convince him otherwise!”

Jiang Cheng didn’t respond or look up, but Wei Ying had keen eyes. He had seen him twitch. He had also seen him quickly wipe a smile off his face.

Oh. Well. If he wanted to play games… Wei Ying loved games.

“I have already told you of the superiority of foxes, but did I mention that our fur feels very silky to the touch?” he asked innocently and flicked his ears towards him as his tail reached out, brushing the bushy tip coyly against his hip while Wei Ying pretended to be studying another round of scratch marks. Bah, boring tiger’s boring marks. Mark your own territory, stupid cat, this was Wei Ying’s! “You should try it.” His eyes went coyly half-lidded. “If you ask very nicely, I’ll even let you pet my ears.”

“Mhm?” Jiang Cheng hummed and channeled a trickle of qi into a set of gouges that held traces of resentful energy.

He…! How…!  Wei Ying didn’t offer to let just anyone touch his ears! Oh, wait if he ever got his hands on that Jiang Cheng-stealing cat!

His grin sharpened with the challenge Jiang Cheng had just unwittingly issued. He did love a good chase…

Wei Ying stepped closer towards him, seemingly to peer over his shoulder at whatever marks had so thoroughly caught his attention. And oh, what if it just so happened that he needed to steady himself, which required him to place a hand on Jiang Cheng’s hip.

He felt the human’s breath hitch, yet he did not tense up or shy away as Wei Ying had half expected. “Yes, yes, your ears are very nice, I’m sure,” he muttered, trying his best to sound dismissive.

Rude!

“They are,” Wei Ying insisted and ducked his head to rub a furry ear against Jiang Cheng’s head. “They are soft and silky; petting them is very relaxing.”

“Is that so?” he scoffed. Jiang Cheng was taking slow and measured breaths, the exact kind of breaths a man would be taking if he was too proud to let on that he was breathing faster. He even placed his hand on his hip, looking for all the world like he was irritated by Wei Ying’s closeness and his very existence – and yet, he wasn’t moving away, wasn’t pushing him away, which could only be an unspoken invitation to keep pushing.

Oh, but he was stubborn. So very stubborn and proud, and how was Wei Ying supposed to resist the promise of a good chase?

“Uhuh,” he hummed, grinning ever so widely as he placed his chin on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and let his hands slide forward, fingers running over the toned chest he kept hidden under these very proper robes. “Jiang-zongzhu will have to feel for himself if he doesn’t believe me!”

Jiang Cheng’s grip on the stash of talismans tightened. His breath hitched a second time.

Got you! Wei Ying’s arms closed around his chest in a firm hug from behind, every part of him right down to his tail giddy with triumph and the warmth that came with knowing that Jiang Cheng wanted his touch, even if he still insisted on his silly human pretenses.

Oh, but this felt good in a way that went beyond succeeding at teasing or winning a game or anything like that. It felt… It had been so long since he had gotten this kind of physical closeness, a simple touch that didn’t serve any other purpose but simply was – let alone in this undisguised body of his. His existence of secrets and illusions didn’t permit much extraneous closeness. It was safer not to, it spared you hurt down the road.

“Stop distracting me, and I might consider it!” Jiang Cheng bristled, sounding deliciously flustered, and yanked Wei Ying out of his thoughts when he skillfully escaped his arms.

“Hah! You admitted it!”

“I never said you are not…!” He cut himself off, mumbling indignantly.

“It’s alright if you find me distracting,” Wei Ying reassured him generously, his eyes shining with a genuine joy that didn’t quite match his teasing tone of voice. It was simply easier to stick to their familiar banter – easier but also safer for his heart. He ached to reach out and touch Jiang Cheng, he ached to haul him into his arms and kiss him. He ached for them to learn one another’s bodies, to discover just how passionate Jiang Cheng would be once he forgot his sect leader persona.

“You are awfully confident in yourself.” Jiang Cheng shot him an arch look over his shoulder. “Are you sure this is warranted?” And yet his gaze lingered like a warm… no, like a scorching hot caress.

Wei Ying found his cheeks heat up even as he lifted his head cockily. “Look at me and tell me it isn’t so!” His lips curled into a coy smirk, and he stalked close again, clawed fingers curling against Jiang Cheng’s chest, right over his heart. The mischief gleaming in his eyes didn’t vanish, but it settled and softened as he demanded, “Look at me and tell me you don’t want me, Jiang-zongzhu.”

Jiang Cheng pulled away, his face bright red. “Out of all the times to be formal you choose now…”

He just grinned, unabashed. So he had guessed right that he liked it. Good, for Wei Ying also liked it when he was flustered, it was such a good look for him.

Unfortunately, this was when Jiang Cheng caught sight of the talismans and was reminded of their reason for being in the forest. He went back to studying them and so did Wei Ying, though he was far more interested in the craftsmanship behind them than the results.

“I have never seen these specific talismans. The way this radical is used here…”

“The tiger yao passed through no more than two days ago, and I know in which direction they went,” Jiang Cheng announced abruptly and started walking without another word. “This talisman here permits me to track a qi signature once it has picked it up… if it works, anyway.”

Wei Ying plucked some interesting talismans from the trees, shoved them into his sleeve so he could study them later, and raced after him.

“If you had asked, I could have told you as much!” he huffed once he had caught up to Jiang Cheng. His brows furrowed. “Why are we going after that stupid cat now, anyway? He stinks up my forest but that is no reason to hunt him.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd that he would mark the trees as his territory and then move on without leaving another sign? He never showed himself to you, did he? I want to follow his tracks and see if he ran into trouble.”

Wei Ying snorted. “Have you looked at yourself yet, revered immortal? This town is swarming with cultivators! What sensible yaoguai would stay?”

Jiang Cheng, damn him, gave him a very long and pointed look, and arched an eyebrow.

Wei Ying responded with a pout.

He kicked at a rotting branch as he passed it and idly made a decision that he would simply enjoy this as a walk with Jiang Cheng, no matter how irrationally jealous he felt over sharing his attention with another yao.

If the tiger had truly run at the sight of cultivators, this hunt wouldn’t lead anywhere. And if he was still around… Wei Ying felt a twinge of unease at the thought, which he forcefully squashed. Jiang Cheng wasn’t like the cultivators who would stab as soon as they saw furry ears or a tail, he had proven himself better already. If the tiger’s cultivation was high enough that they could talk to him, Wei Ying would approach him, and he would mediate so the tiger understood they only wanted to ask him questions. His thoughts went back to that one gouge that had still lingered with resentful energy, but he didn’t want to think about the possibility that they would run into a bloodthirsty beast overcome by resentment. It would be fine, and the tiger would be long gone anyway.

It was a lovely day to enjoy the woods, and Jiang Cheng still stayed close to him, every now and then reaching out to brush his hand against Wei Ying’s, or gallantly offer it to him when they climbed over a fallen tree. It was as if Wei Ying weren’t far nimbler out here than a human and it was all very chaste and proper cultivator courtship but Wei Ying, curse his fool heart, found it endlessly charming instead of hypocritical just as long as it was Jiang Cheng doing it for him.

“When you visit Lotus Pier,” Jiang Cheng began out of nowhere, and Wei Ying felt a giddy thrill run through him at the when in place of an if, “You can hunt as many pheasants as you like, of course, but I would like to take you night hunting, too. Your senses are very sharp.”

It might not have been the most tactful offer to make to a huli jing but Wei Ying didn’t take offense, he just gained a new bounce to his steps and slung an arm over Jiang Cheng’s shoulders, bringing him to a slow halt.

The sun shone down on them between the treetops, casting Jiang Cheng’s beautiful, chiseled face into light and shadow. His eyes were on Wei Ying’s and his lips were ever so slightly parted as he sucked in a sharp breath. These lips were all but begging to be kissed and Wei Ying had been so very good about being all cultivator-style prim and proper, he had been so miraculously good, but there was only so much self-control a single fox could be expected to muster…

“You would have me on your night hunts?” he whispered, clawed fingertips dancing over a sharp cheekbone. He had aimed for teasing, yet his voice just came out tender and so painfully hopeful, it was far more genuine emotion than he commonly liked to show. But prickly, infamous Sandu Shengshou out of all the humans in the cultivation world, he was the one who made it impossible to hold on to distance or pretenses or remember why animal spirits did well to stay away from cultivators. And he knew; he knew enough about humans to understand what it meant for them to say they wanted to night hunt with someone, or he thought he did, anyway. He wanted to believe he did.

“Always.” Even now, Jiang Cheng looked solemn, ever the stern sect leader he had to become far too early in life. But he reached for Wei Ying, too, one hand burying into his hair, the other cupping his cheek. His sword-calloused fingers held him so sweetly as if Wei Ying was already precious to him.

Wei Ying’s eyelids fluttered as his lips curved into a playfully coy smile. “Then I will have to come and protect Jiang-zongzhu, won’t I?” he whispered as he leaned towards Jiang Cheng.

Their lips met - his heart was tight with happiness and desire, and at the very edge of his awareness, he felt a flicker of a presence, of something malevolent rearing up. It died before he could fully register it, dying like a flame that suffocated from having all the air sucked out by his giddiness. Jiang Cheng’s lips against his own remained and then there was his tongue tasting him, there was Jiang Cheng’s hand pulling flush against his body, and Wei Ying felt himself drowning in hunger that had nothing to do with the need for a human’s jing to further his cultivation.

Jiang Cheng tasted even better than in Wei Ying’s fantasies, and he kissed him as if he didn’t ever want to let him go again now that he had broken this taboo.

They kissed again, and again, and between kisses, Jiang Cheng breathed, “Come with me when I leave. I don’t want to wait.”

He was such a romantic underneath the thorns, his sweet, prickly cultivator, and Wei Ying just nodded and kissed him again, knowing there wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t have promised him right now.

“This must be what it feels like to be a carp jumping up a waterfall,” Wei Ying gushed, and Jiang Cheng laughed at his exaggeration, but he didn’t mind, he just nipped at his bottom lip with sharp teeth in retaliation and laughed, too. “If you don’t want me to be so happy, kiss me less.” His smile turned into a smirk. “Or crush my heart by telling me you won’t let me take you home tonight.”

If he hadn’t been drunk on kisses and desire, he might have been wary of this, wary that pushing for more would have Jiang Cheng thinking he only wanted his spiritual essence, but all these concerns felt far away and very small right now.

“Tonight,” Jiang Cheng vowed easily. Heat and promise shone in his eyes though his hands remained surprisingly – disappointingly – proper. In truth, Wei Ying would have seen no need to wait for tonight, right here and now would do. Only, Jiang Cheng was special to him, and humans had all kinds of hang-ups about propriety.

Humans named Jiang Cheng, it turned out, also had all kinds of hang-ups about following through with duty, for the next thing that happened was Jiang Cheng heaving a sigh and telling him, “We still need to hunt down the tiger yao.” When Wei Ying opened his mouth to protest, he ran a thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip to silence him. “Tonight. But the night hunt comes first.”

Would this be his life now? Wei Ying heaved a long-suffering sigh of his own, even as he felt nothing but happiness at the prospect of an entire future of obnoxiously sensible tonights stretching out before him like a promise.

“Stupid, stinky cat,” he huffed, still smiling.

Chapter Text

Wei Ying wasn’t reliant on the senses of ordinary humans to track his prey. Foremost, he used his nose – not quite as strong as if he were in his four-legged shape, but better than in his human disguise – and he reached out to sense, picking apart the traces of energies from the forest, the trees, every living organism that grew or scuttled on them.

Well, alright, half of his attention remained on Jiang Cheng, and he was a huli jing, which made it unbelievably hard not to notice what a feast of a man he was when he was already so focused on sensing energies, but how could he not? Despite his young age, Jiang Cheng’s cultivation was very high; he was like a beacon of light amidst the muted colors of the forest. He truly lived up to his reputation in every delicious way and Wei Ying couldn’t wait to gobble him up. Aiyah! No getting distracted now. Night hunt first.

Despite his manifold distractions, Wei Ying’s senses warned him shortly before Jiang Cheng’s talisman faded from red to black, telling them that the trace he was following had come to an end. By then, the warning wasn’t necessary anymore.

They had walked right onto a battlefield.

It was a small clearing by a bubbling stream, very picturesque with blooming bushes nearby and warm sunlight shining through the gap in the trees, and it would have been truly idyllic if only the clearing hadn't been torn up in battle. If not for the smell of blood and death, and the distinctive tang of resentment left in the wake of a violent death.

“There is no corpse,” Wei Ying noted, nose twitching. As a fox, he had immediately found himself irritated by the absence of carrion smell, so he might as well save them time and Jiang Cheng a round of crawling around the shrubbery.

“The fifth victim,” Jiang Cheng said grimly. He was kneeling by what must have been an impressive puddle of blood before it was soaked up by the earth.

“So, what, is she eating them now?” Wei Ying asked, incredulous. He still couldn’t believe what he was seeing, or how thoroughly his wonderful romantic, seductive walk had been ruined. If this killed his evening plans, he, too, was going to start biting people.

“This isn’t a joke. Someone has died,” Jiang Cheng chided as he looked up with a frown. He was looking charmingly earnest and concerned but not even this could console Wei Ying all that much right now.

Wei Ying gave a one-shouldered shrug. “He started it by marking this territory as his, though it has my markers already. I might have needed to fight him for it if he had chosen to stay. I…” He pressed his lips together and exhaled. “It would not have been easy for me against a tiger.”

It wasn’t that he wasn’t upset, of course, but as tragic as this violent death was, he couldn’t say he was overly upset, either. He had his hands full fighting one rival for his territory, he didn’t need another challenger sniffing around his town. He couldn’t leave for Lotus Pier without first dealing with the rival either, not if he still wanted to have a territory to return to if things went sour in Yunmeng. He wouldn’t have wanted the yao hunted down by Jiang Cheng just for the crime of being a yao, but if his problem miraculously solved itself… Well, he wasn’t going to shed any tears over it.

Jiang Cheng gave him a weird look, scrutinizing him as if he was searching for something specific in his face though Wei Ying couldn’t even begin to fathom what he was looking for. Finally, he just shook his head and said, “You don’t have to fight your battles alone anymore.”

Wei Ying stood there, so stunned he had forgotten all his clever quips and jokes. Even here, where the resentment that had soaked into the ground along with the blood made the air feel unnaturally chilly, Jiang Cheng’s words warmed him like being enfolded in his arms.

Jiang Cheng had insisted they search far and wide for the corpse, though the leaked resentment indicated the tiger had died where he fought – which didn’t mean he couldn’t have walked away after, Jiang Cheng had insisted and with their bad luck being what it was, Wei Ying hadn’t been able to deny it. So, they searched, fruitlessly, until even diligent Jiang Cheng felt he had done all he could.

While they searched, they talked.

“It was a fight for territory that killed my parents,” he said as they checked along the riverbanks. “We didn’t even have a territory. We were wanderers. But there was this wolf pack that considered the land and everyone who lived on it their own, and my parents couldn’t stand for how they terrorized the people, humans and yaoguai alike. They took it as a challenge to their authority and…” He trailed off, shoulders hitching in a tiny shrug.

He kept his eyes on the ground though he knew there would be no bloodstains or footprints to be found. They were searching for an undead tiger, not a winged one; if there were tracks to find they would have been found closer to the battleground. If anything, they would find where the corpse had been disposed of, but his nose would do a better job leading him to carrion than his eyes.

“It scares you,” Jiang Cheng remarked as he walked by his side, his eyes only on Wei Ying. “And yet you are willing to take on a nine-tails.”

He gave a brittle laugh. “I said I’m smart, not that I’m wise.”

They fell back into silence until Wei Ying said, “Your parents died in a fight for territory, too.”

He got to watch Jiang Cheng open his mouth as if he meant to protest, then snap it shut again. He barked a laugh a brittle as Wei Ying's had been. “Yes. Yes, I suppose they did.”

Wei Ying mulled on it, this way in which all sentient beings were similar in their greed and baser instincts. Maybe they really weren’t all that unlike one another. Should he find comfort in this? Could he?

“Jiang Cheng?” He waited until his eyes were on him, then took Jiang Cheng’s hand in his own. “I won’t let you fight your battles alone, either.”

He was just one measly fox, and he couldn’t have blamed Jiang Cheng for laughing in his face. But he didn’t. Jiang Cheng’s breath hitched, and he clung to his hand as if it were a lifeline.

“When my mother died, she transferred her power to me as her dying gift,” Wei Ying went on. It wasn’t something he had ever expected to speak of to a cultivator, yet with Jiang Cheng’s acceptance, telling him of his past felt as easy as breathing. “She locked it away and right now, I have only integrated a smidgen of it into my cultivation. But as time passes and I grow stronger, I will be able to unlock more of it without harming myself.” Determination shone in his eyes and made his steps grow firm. “Just you wait. I’ll grow strong enough to protect you.”

Impoverished Yunmeng Jiang, the butchered sect revived by a mere boy. Even he had heard the rumors during Sunshot – or the sneers, the laughter. He hadn’t cared, back then. But he cared now. Fox spirits repaid kindness and cruelty alike. When he went with Jiang Cheng, he would need his protection from other cultivators but it wouldn’t always be so. He wouldn’t always be one hundred years old – and he would remember it both, the kindness and the cruelty.

Wei Ying spent the rest of the day in a buzz of anticipation that even their grim lack of findings couldn’t taint. Maybe Jiang Cheng thought him callous for it, yet even this prospect couldn’t dampen his giddy anticipation.

What did dampen it somewhat was to receive a messenger butterfly early in the evening, asking him to meet Jiang Cheng in town instead. He wasted no time to leave, of course, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t pout about it. He’d had very specific plans involving Jiang Cheng and his bed, and as nice as a night of drinking in town or getting to know his disciples would be… There would be other nights for that. Tonight was supposed to be just about them and his plans for the night didn’t involve an audience.

Unless, of course, this was exactly why Jiang Cheng wanted to meet him where they would be hard-pressed to get any privacy. Did he have second thoughts about sleeping with a huli jing? Or about being alone with him? Did he fear Wei Ying would use his powers to seduce him whether he wanted it or not?

His thoughts only grew glummer as he made his way into town and having to clothe himself in his human disguise didn’t help his mood, either. He had grown spoiled over the last couple of days. After the freedom that came with being wholly himself around Jiang Cheng and even his disciples, he found that the human skin sat too tight and too wrong, like clothes he had outgrown.

Honestly, he was at the point of feeling a little bit sorry for himself by the time he reached the inn the Yunmeng Jiang group was staying at. So much for his perfect evening. If Jiang Cheng expected him to make nice instead, he better get nothing but the finest baijiu and some stolen kisses to make up for his deprivation.

Old Man Ming was rushing about the seating area of the inn, trying to pay attention to both the late dinner crowd and the early drinking crowd all at once, while that layabout Ming Kuang lounged behind the counter, doing nothing much at all other than sampling the wine.

Wei Ying shot the innkeeper’s son a dirty look. He had neither forgiven nor forgotten that his claims of having seen something inhuman come out of Wu Ping’s room had brought about the night hunt and everything that followed. So maybe Wei Ying owed him, for he would have never met the illustrious Jiang Wanyin otherwise, but he would hold a grudge anyway. He was a fox of many talents, multitasking included.

“Kuang’er,” he said as he lounged against the counter across from the innkeeper’s son, “Put down the wine and call Sandu Shengshou for me.”

“Wei-gege, what are you doing here?”

He turned around, looking right into the friendly but confused face of one of the Jiang disciples.

“Meimei! Qiu-meimei,” he added after only half a moment's hesitation.

He had indeed tried very hard to learn their names over the last couple of days, even if he wouldn’t say that he was on friendly terms with any of them – they were all welcoming enough, but he’d only had eyes for Jiang Cheng. Still. He wasn’t not on friendly terms with any of them either, which said quite a lot already between cultivators and a huli jing. He was truly willing to try but he couldn’t help still thinking of Jiang Cheng’s disciples as a purple blob of faceless cultivators half the time – he knew this would have to change if he wanted things to work out with Jiang Cheng but it wasn’t easy to shake off a century-long habit.

Maybe he did need a night of getting to know Jiang Cheng’s disciples before he walked right into the lion’s den, where he would be constantly surrounded by hundreds of (self-)righteous cultivators instead of just half a dozen. But… but… his seduction plans! Why did it have to be this night?

“I’m looking for A-Cheng, he told me to meet him here. Is he inviting all of us for drinks tonight? I didn’t think he would, he was so concerned with not being seen as slacking off.” Good acting skills there, Wei Ying patted himself on the back for it. He hadn’t even sounded disappointed.

“I’m sorry, he didn’t mention you at all to us,” Qiu Lian said slowly, not looking any less confused after his explanation. “Zongzhu left a little while ago. He was in a hurry, but he said he would explain later.” She bit down on her bottom lip. “Maybe the Wu family meant to berate him again for the lack of progress?”

Wei Ying’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. “Maybe,” he agreed. Jiang Cheng spending the evening being criticized by these nags would be the worst possible outcome. But Wei Ying had never been a pessimist by nature, so his thoughts quickly turned to brighter possibilities. There was a very good chance that Jiang Cheng had realized his concerns were baseless and gone to visit Wei Ying at home, after all. This made a lot more sense, too. Jiang Cheng had no reason to be secretive about a meeting with the Wu family.

It was then that Tang Yun came pounding down the stairs, her robes flaring around her in her hurry. She grabbed her shimei’s arm, nearly yanking her off her feet such was her rush. Why, she didn’t even think to give Wei Ying her usual disapproving look before leaning in, whispering urgently, “The array by the teahouse’s crossroads has been triggered. And I just checked Sect Leader’s room; the tracking talisman connected to it is gone.”

The two Yunmeng Jiang disciples looked at one another in shared dismay. Wei Ying stood there, feeling rooted to the spot as all his happiness evaporated, replaced by sickly dread.

Over the past days, the Yunmeng Jiang disciples had scattered these arrays all over town and yes, Wei Ying had always said they were far more likely to catch an unsuspecting bystander than the illusive and far too clever A-Fen and this remained true but…

“But why would he go alone?” Wei Ying murmured, mostly just wondering aloud.

“Worry about that later, we don’t have time to waste,” Tang Yun reprimanded curtly because it figured she would take it as a question or veiled criticism. Once again, she yanked poor Qiu Lian roughly by the arm. “Come. We have to think of a way to find him.”

“We have to, yes,” Wei Ying said firmly and followed them as the disciples started to make a beeline for the stairs. When Tang Yun turned her head to try and glare him into submission again, as if that had ever worked before, he didn’t even give her time to voice her protests. “I know more about talismans and arrays than all of you put together. And…” He faltered for a mere blink of an eye, but no. No, he would not be cowed. He wouldn’t be ashamed of his feelings. So, he raised his head high and met her eyes in an open challenge, daring her to question his sincerity when he said, “I want to find him as badly as you do.”

His mind was already racing, going through theories even as another realization sat uneasily at the back of his awareness.

He hadn’t known of an array by the teahouse. He had even passed that crossroads just today, there had been no array visible to his senses. Was it a coincidence, a lack of communication, or… No, he didn’t want to think about the possibility that Jiang Cheng had been deceiving him all along, that he had only told Wei Ying bits and pieces of his work around town – just enough to let him believe that he had his trust. He couldn’t afford to think like this now, not when Jiang Cheng had for some unexplainable reason chosen to go alone. Whatever had gotten him so secretive, it couldn’t be solely about Wei Ying or he wouldn’t have excluded his disciples.

Yet none of these reasonable thoughts did anything to assuage the hurt gnawing away at his belly from the inside out.

“Stay or leave. But stop wasting my time standing around on the stairs.”

Tang Yun was holding open a door right by the top of the staircase and scowling impatiently at him. He could hear the Yunmeng Jiang disciples talking inside the room.

“I’m...”

Pain burned through him. It started at his lower dantian and spread from there like lightning shooting through his meridians, pooling into his middle and upper dantian like water flooding a dried riverbed. Wei Ying’s knees buckled and his hands shot out, desperately reaching for the staircase’s banister but too late, too late, his knees were already hitting the stairs hard and his form was wavering, the flow of his qi sputtering, the illusion…

A strong arm wrapped around him and hauled him to his feet, then kept hauling him, dragging him faster than his disobedient feet could follow.

A sound of wood slamming against wood, and Wei Ying fell back against the now-closed door with a whimper of pain.

Everything was burning, he was burning, he…

The protections. The layers upon layers of shields, illusions, and defensive arrays protecting his burrow, all of them were gone, burned away with the sheer, raw, brute force of the invader’s cultivation. Not peeled back, no, obliterated.

Eyes still closed against the pain though it was receding as suddenly as it had come, Wei Ying gave a growl low in his throat.

“Wei Ying. Talk to me.”

He forced his eyes open, blinking against the sharp stabs of pain when the light hit them. Tang Yun was hovering over him as if she expected his legs to give out on him again, little Qiu looked near tears from all the bad news hitting them at once, while the other Jiang disciples scrutinized him with some flavor of concern or impatience or concerned impatience.

“I’ll make tea for gege! It will help him feel better,” Qiu Lian fretted, hands fluttering towards him and pulling back as if she was afraid even touch might bring back his pain.

He would not feel better even if she dunked him in rivers of tea. He would not because someone had torn away all the protections to his burrow. Had laid it bare. Maybe, by now, had destroyed everything he held dear.

Wei Ying forced his disobedient legs to stop shaking with sheer willpower fueled by fear. He straightened himself. If he could not stand without the door’s help, how could he defend his home?

“I have to go,” he said and hated how frail his voice sounded. Shaky. He took a deep breath to steady himself and pushed the memory of pain to the back of his mind. The breaking of the wards had hurt, but it couldn’t actually damage him. With A-Fen’s threat looming over them, he had tied the wards tightly to himself, but he had been careful to do it in a way that avoided any true backlash – knowing well that if someone broke his wards, he would need to fight them right after. What his body experienced was just the mirror image of the damage done. A mirror couldn’t be shattered by displaying a punch. It just… hurt. A lot.

“I have to go,” he said again, voice firmer now. He straightened his shoulders. “Something has come up. And you have to find Jiang Cheng.”

“But…!”

He didn’t stay to hear Little Qiu’s protests or the distinct lack of protests from her martial siblings.

It hurt to know they would believe he was abandoning them and Jiang Cheng, but he was doing them a favor. If he told them that his burrow had been attacked, they would be honor-bound to provide the backup Jiang Cheng had promised him. This was a distraction they couldn’t afford, they needed to catch up to Jiang Cheng before he found what – or rather, whom – he was looking for.

No, this was his problem. He would solve it by himself, as he had always done.

Chapter Text

As soon as Wei Ying left the town behind, he transformed into the nine-tailed fox that was his best form for darting through the dark nighttime forest.

His paws barely touched the ground as he raced towards home, only his thoughts racing even faster.

Had A-Fen found his home and attacked it? Why, though, and why now? She must have known for months where he lived. Had she realized she had activated Jiang Cheng’s array and was about to be run down by cultivators? If she had expected to find Wei Ying at home, if she had thought she could take him hostage… But no, he was a huli jing, she had no reason to believe Jiang Cheng would do anything but celebrate two dead huli jing in place of one.

Was it the tiger yao? They hadn’t found a corpse and they had been convinced A-Fen had killed him for violating her territory but maybe they were too narrow-minded trying to connect every oddity to their case. Maybe the resentment was from a fight against someone completely unrelated, and the tiger had walked away. He would have good reason to tear apart Wei Ying’s burrow if he sought to make this place his own.

Which left Jiang Cheng, why had he gone alone? Had A-Fen already gotten into his head, had he been tricked into delivering himself to her while he thought he was tracking her down? It would explain the messenger butterfly, why Jiang Cheng had called him into town and then abruptly changed his plans, disappearing before Wei Ying could join him.

Just short of the clearing his house stood on, Wei Ying skidded to a sudden halt. His head swiveled back and forth in sudden uncertainty. Had he made the wrong choice? Should he head back?

The burrow would be lost already. The culprit might even be long gone by now. But in town, they were searching for Jiang Cheng. He would be useful there. They needed him. What had he even been thinking, running off when they needed him? But… If he ran back now, he would never reach them before the Yunmeng Jiang group left the inn. He wouldn’t have any means to track them, either. Then he would be completely useless, too late to do anything about either problem.

No, his choice had been made the moment he rushed out of the inn; he would simply have to hope that it wouldn’t turn out a costly one.

He trotted forward, though every step felt heavy now, laden with guilt and indecision gnawing away at him.

When he stepped onto the clearing, everything looked deceptively normal, only his front door swinging back and forth with the wind betraying that something about this picture was off.

He approached slowly, keenly aware of every blade of grass under his paws. Nine bushy red fox tails were raised high in a show of dominance he could only hope would look intimidating, their white tips ruffled by the wind.

He didn’t smell tiger, he didn’t smell fox - but that meant nothing with a yaoguai strong enough to tear all his wards to smithereens in one go.

Wei Ying’s paws didn’t make a sound as he slipped through the door just as the wind pushed it wide open, his tails making it through right before it could slam shut again.

He shifted and changed, his body growing upwards in height as the tails vanished except for one.

There he stood now in what used to be his cozy little home, his ears turned backward against his skull in quiet, seething fury, his tail stiff and still behind him. Black robes swished around his legs with every careful step he took deeper into his hut. It was pitch-black inside and he melted into the darkness, though his eyes had no trouble seeing – which, unfortunately, went for any other yao as well.

His home looked untouched; the box of cakes he had bought still lay unopened on the table, while his bed was freshly made in expectation of Jiang Cheng sharing it.

And there, right next to his bed, where there should have been the solid back wall of his hut, there was instead an opening flickering in and out of existence with sickly flashes of red light – or rather, it was the wall flickering in and out of existence, as the illusion fought to reestablish itself.

When he inhaled, the smell of damp soil and stone filled his nose – but only that, there was still no foreign smell. All he smelled was himself and Jiang Cheng, the only visitor he’d had since this whole mess began.

As Wei Ying took the first step into the tunnel, he stretched out his right hand, then dropped it again as he thought better of conjuring up a sword just yet. Even such a small flicker of using his powers of illusion would be noticeable to another huli jing.

Every step down the dark, damp tunnel leading deeper into his burrow felt heavier than the last and fear clung sickly to the back of his throat. What had he been thinking, to do this alone? But no. He had always been alone; a few days of companionship shouldn’t soften him so much that he couldn’t fight his own battles anymore. But if it was A-Fen, an actual nine-tailed fox…

Wei Ying’s breath hitched, his feet halted momentarily – there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Oil lamps burned and bathed his working space in warm light, and they bathed in light the single tall figure that stood with his back turned to Wei Ying, head bowed over the workbench holding his array sketches.

Wei Ying’s eyes remained riveted on the purple-clad back when he stretched out his hand and channeled his qi. His fingertips exuded red mist that condensed itself into Suibian. The hilt of the illusioned sword felt cool and solid in his grip, and he knew it to be sharper than any man-made blade.

Wei Ying felt bile scratch at the back of his throat, only intensifying with every step that felt too heavy to bear, yet he forced himself to keep taking these steps until he too stood in the light of the oil lamps.

It didn’t matter if his heart was breaking. It didn’t matter. It had happened before; it would happen again. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter at all.

“If Jiang Wanyin had wanted to see my burrow, he could have asked.”

If he were any less experienced or more naïve, Wei Ying might have put it down to a misunderstanding. To impatience, to miscommunication of what they permitted one another, to a hundred excuses he might have been willing to find for this man who made his heart feel so light and giddy with joy.

But Wei Ying was young, not inexperienced about life or the true nature of people. People, animal spirits as much as humans, could be selfish and cruel, and they could rarely be trusted. There had been very few who looked upon an orphaned fox kit with any kindness. People were selfish, and they only saw what they wanted to see. Who they wanted to see.

His eyes burned and he blinked against that burn, furious with it – with himself.

Jiang Cheng turned around and Wei Ying had to struggle not to avert his eyes, though he didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to see his face look so cold and angry, gazing at him only with distrust and none of the tenderness with which he had looked upon Wei Ying just a couple of hours ago. He was still beautiful, even now, but Wei Ying couldn’t find it in him to call the cold anger in his eyes beautiful, not when it was breaking his heart like this. Jiang Cheng’s eyes dropped to the sword in Wei Ying’s right hand. Something sparked purple at Jiang Cheng's right hand. Zidian. His left hand was balled into a fist around something that emitted a faint light between his clenched fingers.

“Did you have fun?” Jiang Cheng sneered.

“What…?”

“Was it fun?” Jiang Cheng went on before Wei Ying could even find the right words to protest, or to demand what the fuck was going on. “I hope it was. I hope you had a good time playing me.” Jiang Cheng’s sneer was still beautiful, too, even as it cut right into Wei Ying’s heart. He sounded exactly as cold as you would expect from a righteous cultivator facing down a huli jing. As if they had never become anything else, as if he had never even seen Wei Ying as anything but another evil yaoguai to hunt down… “Did you laugh about me behind my back? Did you sit here in your burrow and plan the next lies you would tell me?”

“I didn’t lie to you!” Wei Ying blurted out, even as he felt guilt nibble at the back of his mind because this was another lie. But he hadn’t told him an important lie. It shouldn’t matter. And as far as he could determine, it wasn’t even one Jiang Cheng had exposed yet – or else he would for sure have greeted Wei Ying with Zidian’s lash instead of accusations. “And… and… I didn’t… I didn’t sit here in my burrow and plot evil plans to seduce you! Evilly!”

It was so ludicrous, he should be laughing about it. It did rip a laugh out of his throat, except it stung in his throat and in his eyes, and he didn’t like it.

It was so absolutely ridiculous – and it was exactly what he should have expected from a cultivator, wasn’t it?

Another laugh bubbled up in Wei Ying’s throat, this one lasting longer, almost something like a cackle except his throat felt too tight and achy to withstand a proper cackle.

He should have known. This was exactly what these oh-so-righteous immortal masters were like. Always judging others while they turned a blind eye to the wrongs of their own. Always judging. Always condemning. Their eyes were so cold.

“You broke into my burrow,” he pointed out, increasingly furious now as he let himself think about the injustice of it all, “So why am I getting accused here!” He pointed Suibian at him just like he would point an accusing finger. He took a step closer. And still, this felt like a bad dream. How could things have gone so wrong so quickly? “I was worried for you! Your disciples told me you were following a trace from an array, I was sick with worry! But you had only lied to get me out of my home so you could break in!”

“You’re still denying it?!” Jiang Cheng snapped, and oh, this time his voice was as sharp and furious as Zidian’s lash, but it nearly broke at the end. Tears swam in his red-rimmed eyes – under different circumstances, Wei Ying would have found this beautiful, too. Purple sparked at his hand and Zidian’s length extended from the ring, its lash curling on the ground. “I trusted you! I was such a fucking idiot for you!”

With a growl of fury, Jiang Cheng sprang into motion. Zidian’s length was suddenly in the air and in motion, a glowing purple streak promising nothing but pain.

Wei Ying yipped and leaped to the side, Suibian raised high to block the lash as it came down on him.

Zidian slammed into the ground right to his left, passing him by so close that the fur of his tail bristled with the static.

“I trusted you!” Jiang Cheng howled as tears spilled over his cheeks. He threw something at Wei Ying that he had been holding in his left hand.

It was foolish to reach for it when it could very well be an exploding talisman or worse, but instincts won out. Wei Ying snatched a glowing yellow talisman out of the air, even a glance at the crumpled piece of paper was enough to recognize it as a tracker for the arrays in town. Now that he had the context for it, he recalled the glow as the same one from the activated talismans Jiang Cheng had used to track the tiger yao in the forest.

“You’ve been playing me all along! You told me…” Jiang Cheng sucked in a sharp, shaky breath. “I thought it was real, but you were just toying with me, lying to me, laughing at me as you made me run around in circles and vouch for you to my disciples while the one we were searching for stood in front of me all along!” He swung his arm back, readying himself for another lash of the whip.

Oh, but Wei Ying was really getting tired of this.

He snarled, fangs flashing white, and flung the sword into the darkness – it vanished back into the red mist it had come from as Wei Ying’s claws lengthened and took on the same red glow. He’d never been much of a swordsman anyway, never had anyone to teach him properly.

“You told me you’d take me home as your lover, and then you lied to me to lure me away and broke into my home, and now you’re trying to whip the fur off my back and somehow you are wronged.” Another wet laugh bubbled up in Wei Ying’s throat. He could feel the tears spill down his cheeks, too. They burned hot. He burned hot. He burned with rage. He felt cold. He felt so terribly cold. He wanted to turn into a fox and curl into a tight bundle of fur and tails until his heart stopped hurting quite so much – but he also wanted to dig his claws into Jiang Wanyin’s pretty eyes and rip them out because he had no right to be crying. “You’re the liar!” he raged, uselessly. “You’re just another filthy cultivator liar!”

With a growl of rage and a hiss of lightning, Zidian came down on him and Wei Ying leaped aside once more, twisting around, clawed hand darting out and snatching the tail of the whip. It burned, sharp pain like a thousand lightning bolts racing from his hand through his entire body. Yet his righteous fury burned brighter, and he found the willpower to push through the pain and yank it.

Jiang Cheng hadn’t expected that; he stumbled towards him - he’d never seen Wei Ying fight, he realized suddenly, not for real. A part of him reminded him that this still wasn’t for real, he was still holding back, even now, because his heart hurt and he just couldn’t. He wanted to rip out these pretty eyes and pluck the beating heart out of his chest and he also just wanted to grab him and shake him and scream at him, Why?

Wei Ying’s claws slashed forward as soon as Jiang Cheng came into reach, one hand going for his chest and the other for his throat.

Jiang Cheng twisted sideways just in time; Wei Ying’s claws only caught his sleeve. In the same motion, he moved backward and unleashed Zidian once more for a low swipe aimed at Wei Ying’s legs.

It was an odd battle they fell into, one fighter trying to get into hand-to-hand range while the other sought to fight from a distance, both of them struggling with fighting in the burrow that was too crowded for proper dodging, the ceiling too low to extend Zidian to proper combat length.

And still, even now, Wei Ying found himself holding back.

Or maybe that was just because he could barely breathe, every breath was so hard when the tears kept coming and clogging up his nose and his throat and blurring his sight and he could barely even see Zidian through the tears. His feelings were churning within him like a whirlwind, and so was his qi, it felt like all these too-many, too-painful, too-raw feelings were burning him up from the inside, cooking him ever hotter, cooking him alive until all he could do was cling to this form when everything in him wanted to become small and four-pawed and run away. But nothing could burn hot enough to burn away these damned, traitorous tears.

“I trusted you!” Jiang Cheng choked out in a sob just as the whip slammed into Wei Ying’s thigh.

He staggered. Pain wracked through his body in wave after wave until his knees buckled. He hit the ground hard and caught himself on his hands, head still held high in stubborn defiance, teeth bared, sneering, “Come here and fight me like a man. Or are you too cowardly for that? Hiding behind your toy whip. Look how brave and righteous you are!”

He had been such a fool. Such a stupid, naïve fool. A hundred years old and he still believed in fairy tales, how pathetic could he be? A cultivator falling in love with a yao and whisking them away to a new life, this only happened in teahouse stories – and even in these, it usually had a tragic ending. But he had been alone in a crowd for countless years, and Jiang Cheng had been there, he had known the truth and accepted him anyway, had even convinced his disciples to treat Wei Ying like a peer instead of a beast…

Lies. All lies. Some stupid array lighting up was all it took for Jiang Cheng’s affection to turn into suspicion and wild accusations, if he had ever held any affection for him at all.

“What are you even blaming me for?” he spat, his voice dripping with so much bitterness. “So I have a burrow! I’m a fox!” He laughed a cackling, bitter laugh as he picked himself up from the floor. He didn’t know why Jiang Cheng hadn’t pressed the advantage while he had it, but he just stood there, glaring at him with that sizzling whip in hand, breathing heavily while tears ran down his face and he fought for every gasping breath. He was such an ugly crier. The sight of it could have broken Wei Ying’s heart, if there had been anything left to break.

So he got to his feet and glared right back at Jiang Cheng in this strange stand-off, and snapped at him, “There’s nothing here you didn’t know of!” He shook his head and the tears came faster, so he shook his head again, faster, too, as if this could shake off the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. “I was going to show it to you tonight!”

It hadn’t occurred to him Jiang Cheng might be more interested in seeing his burrow than his bed, but it was inevitable he would have shown him the burrow at some point during the evening. He would have been eager to show off his inventions and clever protections. Now that he had already committed to trusting himself fully to Jiang Cheng what with agreeing to follow him to Lotus Pier, trusting him with his burrow would have been a small step in comparison.

Jiang Cheng just looked at him in disgust; horror and disbelief warred in his teary eyes. “You’re such a good liar,” he whispered, his voice breaking on the compliment. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes… I would believe you. Even now.” He sucked in a sharp breath. Zidian sputtered and died. His shoulders slumped. “I should have known it couldn’t be real when you made me happy.”

He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t. He couldn’t stand it.

With a snarl, Wei Ying threw himself at Jiang Cheng, his claws out, his teeth flashing. He was driven by some vague thought of tearing into him, tearing out his throat, just making him stop talking because it hurt too much and he couldn’t stand it.

Jiang Cheng met him with a qi-infused fist to the chest that threw him back and sent him slamming into the cave wall all the way at the far end of the room.

Wei Ying sank to the ground with a pained hiss and felt for his ribs, trying to determine if any of them had been broken, though he half didn’t even want to know.

He didn’t want to know what Jiang Cheng could do to him. He didn’t want to know what Wei Ying could do to him, either – or he still couldn’t bring himself to fight for real.

His eyes flickered to the left of him.

He had landed right by the entrance to one of the smaller rooms branching off from the main room. It held more tables and shelves for the tinkering projects he wasn’t working on right now – and most importantly, one of several hidden exits whose illusions remained intact as they were tied to him separately. He didn’t want to stay and fight anymore, not tonight. If he were smart, he would end it now while Jiang Cheng was alone, shaken and unprepared. He would never get another chance like this. But he couldn’t. He knew that he couldn’t. Not tonight.

Once the decision was made, there was no sense in delaying.

With all his foxlike grace, he leaped to his feet and made a dash for the side room, Jiang Cheng cursing, “Fuck!” hot on his heels with pounding steps.

There stood a large stone table right in the middle of the storage room, where it shouldn’t have been, and hurtling into the room at full speed, Wei Ying slammed right into it before he could stop himself.

He yelped as he hit it hard, his abused ribs slamming into stone, and keeled over, faceplanting into something soft. A sheet. It covered something, and Wei Ying found himself momentarily distracted from his flight by the strangely muffled smell of something not quite like death and… tiger?

He righted himself and his eyes took in the sight before him, shock burning it into his memory.

Here, right in the middle of his storage room, on his worktable, in his burrow, laid the very same tiger yao he had smelled in the forest. The sheet was pulled back far enough to expose his head and half his chest. He looked dead and certainly was mauled enough by claws and teeth to be dead, though the smell of decay was off-putting, strangely weak. Most startling, the chalky skin of his face and throat was marred by a splotchy branch-like pattern. The residue of raw, powerful huli jing cultivation clung to this body, it had burned through it and ravaged it so thoroughly that the table must be warded, or else he would have sensed it as soon as he stepped into his burrow.

Wei Ying had never gone anywhere near the battlefields of the Sunshot Campaign but he had heard the stories of the Wen sect and their demonic cultivation, of the puppet armies and other assorted dark deeds. Ever since he moved here, he had heard the hushed stories of them being lucky in their bad luck; only the Wen cultivators’ habit of avoiding the town had prevented them from taking its peasants to feed the ranks of Wen Ruohan’s puppet army such as they had in many towns closer to Qishan.

He did not need to have seen the battlefields of the Sunshot Campaign to know exactly how damning this looked.

“Your failed experiment can’t save you,” Jiang Cheng sneered from the doorway. “Looks like you’re no Wen Ruohan.” Zidian sparked at his finger, ready to be unleashed once more, but he didn’t look like he was about to attack. Not right yet, anyway. For the moment, Jiang Cheng seemed content to stay there and watch – and why should he not, when it appeared as if Wei Ying had neatly trapped himself by going for his ultimate weapon and instead only finding a dead end.

It all fell into place now. The fury, the condemnation, the tears and betrayal…

His enemy hadn’t been content simply to paint Wei Ying as the culprit of her murders – reason enough for a night hunt to slay a yaoguai as too dangerous to live – but she had gone and added a reminder of the war that had cost Jiang Cheng everything, had painted him as a would-be copycat of the man he must hate more than anyone else in the world. Wartime nightmares were about to come to life once again right under his watch – the ultimate betrayal, one which would have him condemn Wei Ying without ever giving him the chance to defend himself.

Once again, bitter laughter bubbled up in Wei Ying’s throat – he was so tired of his own laughter, so tired of the hurt, so tired of every new realization only driving home that he had never even stood a chance.

“I wanted to believe in you,” Jiang Cheng told him. He wasn’t screaming anymore, and the tears just rolled quietly down his cheeks now, only they and the shaking of his voice betrayed that he was no less wounded – or furious – than he had been when he was chasing Wei Ying with Zidian. “Out of the dozens of arrays, the one you activated was the only one you didn’t know of. I had to keep at least one hidden from you. Just for my own peace of mind, and my integrity as a cultivator. But even when you activated exactly that one, I kept it a secret for your sake. We did say these arrays could be triggered by just about any yao passing through if they malfunctioned, and I didn’t want my disciples to treat you with suspicion.” He shook his head, a twisted, pained smile flickering over his face. “When it led me into your direction, I was sure I had made the right choice. If I hadn’t run into that woman gathering mushrooms who said she heard terrible noises from your hut, if I hadn’t been worried enough to break through your shields when I found your hut empty… I was still worried for you, even then!” He laughed bitterly. “I wonder what lie you would have told me this time.”

Even now as he looked into Jiang Cheng’s eyes that regarded him so coldly, devoid of the love he hadn’t even realized shone in them until it was gone, there was a foolish, hopeful part of Wei Ying that insisted Jiang Cheng would understand if he explained.

But he wouldn’t, would he? The evidence was too damning. Anything else, he could have explained away, but the puppet? Even Wei Ying didn’t know how or when A-Fen had managed to break in and place the puppet, all without him noticing. Maybe it had been here ever since the tiger yaoguai died. Wei Ying had been so busy romancing Jiang Cheng, he hadn’t even entered his burrow for days.

More importantly, whatever he said or did, Jiang Cheng would only see his old horrors come to new life. With anybody else, he might have listened – but Wei Ying was a huli jing. The more convincing he was, the more it would condemn him in the eyes of a cultivator, for was it not their very nature to beguile and ensnare the human mind?

There was only one way this could end. There had only ever been one way this could end, and he had been a fool to believe his life could be a teahouse romance.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Ying whispered. Then he snapped into motion.

He flung himself into the air and his body shifted mid-leap, shrinking and reshaping itself, eight more bushy tails bursting into being as his robes vanished away and fur sprouted. His legs were stretched out for the leap and his whole body glowed with a burst of red qi.

“You!” Jiang Cheng cried, shocked and heartbroken all over again as he recognized the nine-tailed fox he had caught at Wu Ping’s coffin in the Wu estate. “It’s always been you!”

Behind him, there was the sizzle of Zidian being unleashed, the whoosh of the whip cutting through the air, the static electricity bristling his fur. Wei Ying hit the wall right between two storage shelves a mere moment before Zidian’s lash reached him, and he slipped right through solid packed dirt and stone while the whip only cut a gouge into the wall.

Wei Ying’s paws barely touched the ground of his fox-sized escape tunnel as he raced through the darkness.

He raced away from all his dreams and hopes and towards… Towards what? He did not know. All he knew was that whatever his future may hold, it would be lonelier.

Chapter Text

There was no time to lick his wounds.

It was a fact Wei Ying had learned very early in his life that the more you felt like curling up to cry, the less you could afford to do so. The world had not been kind to an abandoned fox kit and it had continued not to be overly kind to an adult huli jing, though it had gotten easier to dodge the blows. Or maybe he had simply gotten better at it with ample experience.

Either way, he knew very well that he couldn’t afford to curl up and cry.

The town that had been his home for nearly two years had now become dangerous to him; it could even turn into a death trap what with him caught between two enemies both seeking to destroy him.

He didn’t have time to curl up and cry, and yet this was all Wei Ying could think of once he had escaped. He hid himself away in the woods in the deepest hole he could find, and curled up with his tails blanketing him in the only hug he would receive now. Whines and mournful trills bubbled up from him as he languished in his broken heart. Alone in this cold, damp hole in the earth, he felt like he was drowning in his loneliness – and wasn’t that a joke when he made friends wherever he went?

Wei Ying had been a cheerful child who grew up into a cheerful adult – but cheerful wasn’t the same as happy, or lucky, or gifted with an uncomplicated life. He had been cheerful in spite of the hardships life had thrown at him, not because of them. Oftentimes, he had been cheerful because putting a smile on his face and ignoring all other emotions was the only way to keep going.

Nobody had use for a moping huli jing.

So he had grown up learning that you could starve while around you, food was plenty, and that you could be lonely even if you were never alone. And maybe he had felt resentment over that if he let himself really think about it, but this was why he had never let himself think about it much. The world was full of sights to see and wonders to experience, and as long as he stayed in motion wandering from one adventure into the next such dark thoughts couldn’t catch up to him.

There was no point in being bitter about his choices. They had been his choices, after all. Once he was old and powerful enough to be useful, he could have found a master to learn from, but there was a reason he had chosen to wander just like his parents did. Wei Ying didn’t do well with the confines of rules and hierarchies, he questioned too much, spoke too freely, and did not bother to restrain his thoughts.

Another whine escaped him and he tucked himself into an even tighter ball at the misery welling up in him.

He had been a fool to ever think he stood a chance with Jiang Cheng, hadn’t he? It would have been the same story all over again. You couldn’t find a more narrow-minded, judgmental lot than orthodox cultivators. It could have never lasted. Jiang Cheng’s world would have never welcomed Wei Ying.

Maybe it had been for the best to be betrayed now, while he could still run. While he had at least some shreds of his pride left. He hadn’t followed Jiang Cheng home to Lotus Pier like a stray dog, only to be kicked out in shame and disgrace – or worse.

Yes, he should consider himself lucky. Wei Ying had never been very lucky, as such, but he had always been prone to luck of the it could have been so much worse sort.

It could have been so much worse, so he would count himself lucky and remember to smile - but he would have to do it elsewhere. He couldn’t stay here, so much was clear.

He didn’t know why or for how long but there could be no doubt he was now the nine-tails’ target. Planting a puppet in his burrow and leading Jiang Cheng there had been nothing short of a murder attempt, using Jiang Cheng’s hatred for the Wen sect as her weapon.

And Jiang Cheng, his sweet, handsome Jiang Cheng? He had not killed him and now that Wei Ying was no longer actively fearing for his life, he could see that Jiang Cheng hadn’t ever tried very hard. He had fought a war against Wen Ruohan’s armies and puppets; if he had truly tried his hardest to kill Wei Ying, he could have done far more damage than a few mild smacks with Zidian. Wei Ying was clever and he was quick and he thought very highly of his own skills, but even he could see he should not have escaped this battle unscathed.

But at the end of the day, his sweet Jiang Cheng was a cultivator on a night hunt – and Wei Ying was now the target of his hunt.

No, nothing good would come out of staying, and even if he tried, there was nothing to be gained by it but more heartache.

Wei Ying sluggishly got to his feet. He wasn’t hurt but he was hurting; his entire body felt raw with exhaustion and ached with grief.

There was no time to curl up and cry. If he wanted to escape this town alive, he would have to act fast. He had to get out of here before A-Fen realized her trap had failed. Before Jiang Cheng remembered his duty.

It was too risky to go home and it wasn’t like he could take much luggage if he meant to travel as a fox, as he would. He would mourn his notes and gadgets but there was nothing that couldn’t be rebuilt better in a different place – he had done so often enough. It would be easier to start over without anything to remind him of the life that could have been.

Even as these thoughts ran through his mind, Wei Ying’s paws carried him back toward the town that had been his home for nearly two years.

He would not return to his hut, he would not take anything with him, but he couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to the people who had made him feel less alone in a crowd, even if he could never be honest with them. No matter the risk, no matter how foolish it was. He had always been reckless, anyway.

Old Zhao and Granny Lu, they wouldn’t live long enough to see Wei Ying next return to this swath of land between Yunmeng and Qishan in ten, twenty, maybe fifty years.

Once more looking perfectly human, Wei Ying lingered at the edge of town, wary to proceed though his decision stood firm.

His confrontation with Jiang Cheng had been yesterday evening; it was late in the afternoon now. That was plenty of time for a group of seven experienced cultivators to have plastered the town with more arrays whose placement he didn’t know, maybe even with traps.

Should he wait until nightfall? By night, he could dart around as a fox. He felt safer in that shape. But there would be no crowd to lose himself in, no illusions to slip on, it would be just him and the cultivators in a lethal chase.

Oh, he was certain he could outrun and outsmart them but that was useless to him. If he had to run, he couldn’t say his goodbyes.

Thus, Wei Ying heaved a sigh, resigned himself to his foolish fate, and walked into town in broad daylight while wearing his own face.

Cultivators were proud and Yunmeng Jiang desperately needed this night hunt to succeed to improve their reputation. They would not hunt or accuse him in front of the townspeople for this would mean admitting that the huli jing they were hunting had been right in front of them all along, playing them for fools. Or, well, so he hoped, anyway.

It felt strange to be walking through familiar streets and greeting familiar people when he knew this to be the last time. It felt even stranger to know that he had been expecting, even anticipating to soon walk these streets for the last time before he left with Jiang Cheng for Lotus Pier. What difference a day could make.

He would have liked to say goodbye to more townspeople, but it was late in the day. He had to be out of town before the streets emptied of prospective witnesses to Yunmeng Jiang’s shame, so he made a beeline for Granny Lu’s stall.

“Popo, how did you get even prettier since I last saw you?” he chirped as he skipped towards her stall, a cheerful smile on his lips. He couldn’t say for sure that it reached his eyes, he could only hope he wouldn’t worry her. “You will have all the young girls fuming with envy!”

“Such a silly child! And they say young people have good eyes!” She reached out to swat his arm and Wei Ying, naturally, made a grand show of whining and holding his arm until she tutted and thrust a strip of dried meat at him. “Here, eat this to heal your injury, stinky brat.”

Wei Ying took a bite out of the dried meat, happy to discover it was venison. “This is why you are my favorite, popo!”

He covertly looked around; he still couldn’t catch a glimpse of Yunmeng Jiang robes. So far, so good – but he couldn’t afford to linger.

He walked around her table, reaching for the old woman’s hand. “Listen, Granny, there is something I need to tell you.”

He hadn’t told her the truth, of course, just a hastily cobbled-together tale of needing to rush to the side of a relative fallen ill, with no way to know if he would return. Granny Lu had looked at him with kind, sympathetic eyes and patted his head, and she hadn’t even pointed out that he had always claimed to have no living family though her mind was sharp and she never forgot anything Wei Ying told her.

Walking away from her stall was all the harder for knowing the kindness of ignorance to be what it was. He would miss her, and who would now make her teas that soothed her aches just a little bit more than teas should?

But he couldn’t stay. If it was either A-Fen or the cultivators, he could think about standing his ground but surviving both? Impossible. Besides, he didn’t want to fight Jiang Cheng. He didn’t want to kill him, even if he could.

“Wei-qianbei!”

Tang Yun’s voice cut through the din of the market and the fuzz of Wei Ying’s thoughts as sharply as Zidian’s lash.

She elbowed people out of her way, a lilac-robed rampaging bull stomping her way toward Wei Ying while he stood frozen in place.

“What are you doing here? And where is zongzhu? We’ve been looking everywhere for you two!”

Wei Ying’s thoughts stuttered to a halt before he could even remember how to unfreeze his legs. “What?” he asked blankly.

This was… It was simply bizarre. Tang Yun was scowling at him in the exact same Jiang Cheng-like way she had always scowled, not like she was in the middle of night hunting him. And Jiang Cheng? Why should he be with him? Well, yes, he would be hunting him, fine, and that would explain why they were looking for Wei Ying but why would they expect Wei Ying to know where his pursuer was?

There were a lot of puzzle pieces here and none of them fit together – just like during every other step of this investigation and see how this had ended for Wei Ying.

“Because you were meeting him? The letter you left at the inn for him in the morning? The innkeeper gave it to me when I ordered breakfast, and I took it to zongzhu right away. He just took one look at it, then he ran off.” Her eyebrows knitted together. “Was he too late? Was that an old letter the boss had forgotten to pass on? I’ll have his hide for it if he did!”

For all that Wei Ying was flabbergasted, he did have one advantage, and this was that he was a master at improvising. He was rarely ever left speechless for long, no matter how bizarre the situation he was thrown into. If he had no clever way out of it, then he was at least good at faking it to buy himself time.

Thus, it didn’t take much more but a mental twitch for muscle memory to kick in and shape his lips into an easy-going smile, and even force a laugh. “Guniang is going to make this lowly fox blush! There is no need for violence to defend my honor or my correspondence!” He winked. “Unless you insist, in which case I couldn’t refuse a pretty girl her heart’s desire!”

He was barely even aware of the words spilling from his lips. There was noise coming out and his face was doing things but he barely heard himself over his frantic thoughts; it might as well have been the howling of the wind.

Tang Yun was acting as if nothing had happened. So, this was how they were going to get him then. Pretend that nothing had changed, that Jiang Cheng hadn’t told them. He would bet a nice big chunk of taels on her following up with some excuse to get him out of town, where the trap would be sprung.

Maybe he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to Old Man Zhao, after all. Or maybe he could, if Tang Yun was dedicated enough to upholding the pretense. It was worth a try or would at the very least buy him time to come up with a real plan.

“My heart’s desire is going to be ripping the hair out of your tail one by one if you don’t stop that nonsense and tell me where zongzhu is!” Tang Yun snapped, arms crossed over her chest in a way that flexed her biceps menacingly.  “I flew to your hut to bring him an urgent message from Lotus Pier since I figured you two would waste away the day fawning over another but when I got there, I didn’t find anyone – just the hut wrecked and scorched with lightning whip marks!”

Cute. Maybe if he were anything but a huli jing, he would have believed her. She was convincing, he would give her that. Even he with all his experience could read nothing but honesty in her voice and her eyes. But Wei Ying was a huli jing, he knew everything about playing into people’s desires to get what you wanted from them.

His smile didn’t even flicker, it just turned even more coy. “Does guniang often dream of receiving love notes from this fox?” he cooed, and yes, he was taking a cruel delight in this now. But really, how could he not make fun of her for this ridiculous story?

Tang Yun made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat and yanked a piece of paper out of a fold of her robe, which she promptly slapped at his face. “Zongzhu left the letter behind, so here! Tell me it isn’t fox work!”

The moment Wei Ying grabbed the letter to get it out of his face, he felt it, too. His fingers prickled with the very distinctive cultivation of a huli jing. Or more precisely…

He sent a flicker of his own qi into the paper, absently skimming over the message while he did so. It was unimaginative prattle of pleading for a chance to explain himself. He would have scoffed at it, except it was written in perfect mimicry of his own hand and in his own words – a perfect mimicry as long as you ignored that he tended to lose all his eloquence when he was heartbroken, but how would Jiang Cheng know that?

Either way, this was enough to make him pause before he could dispel the illusion. Pause, and read the letter in full – only to soon wish he hadn’t.

That day on the roof, you said you don’t need to know my reasons, that you only need to find me and finish me off.

His heart stuttered. She had been watching even then? Watching, listening... pulling their strings? Wei Ying’s belly filled with renewed dread and he barely registered the rest, predictably asking for Jiang Cheng to meet him. He took great, grim satisfaction in channeling qi into the letter and watching as the paper turned back into a leaf in his hand.

“See? It’s your huli jing illusion.” Tang Yun snorted a heavy, impatient breath. “So I’m asking just once more before your tail is going bald: Why are you here and my sect leader isn’t?!” Tang Yun narrowed her eyes at him. “Because if you were attacked and you left him behind to save your own sorry life…”

Wei Ying felt cold. There was an icy fist reaching into his belly, squeezing and twisting his guts until they, too, froze into ice.

With his grip turned limp, the leaf, once more just a leaf, fluttered to the ground and was carried away by the breeze.

He met Tang Yun’s eyes and saw the fear disguised as annoyance there for what it was. What it had been all along, while he applauded her for her acting skills.

“You know why,” he said. He startled even himself with how calm he sounded though he was anything but. It was the kind of calm you clung to when you were standing on the edge of a precipice and anything but perfect, eerie stillness would send you hurtling into the abyss.

And then, just because he was sure she knew but they both needed it spoken aloud, needed him to confirm, “You know that this wasn’t my illusion.”

Wei Ying felt cold – and he still had to get out of here. It hit him suddenly, he still had to get away because his plan had always been to get away. He was done with the cultivators, he was done with Jiang Cheng, he was done with night hunts and playing the hero and everything else. He had been saying his goodbyes to leave. He had no place getting involved in Yunmeng Jiang's business anymore. Jiang Cheng wouldn’t want him here.

But… Jiang Cheng had gone to meet him. Or had he known the trap for what it was? No, he would have taken his disciples if he knew. He hadn’t even told them of Wei Ying’s betrayal – or maybe he had and Tang Yun just couldn’t afford to care anymore in the face of greater danger. Maybe it was still a trap. Sandu Shengshou was known to be ruthless and clever in hunting down his enemies. Maybe he knew how to fake a huli jing’s illusion.

But no. Jiang Cheng was in danger. He might even… No, he wouldn’t be dead yet. He was too strong; if she drained him in one go, she wouldn’t be able to fully absorb his energies. There was no reason not to bleed him slowly and use him as bait in the meantime. The cultivation of seven senior disciples of a great sect might be enough to let the nine-tails break through to immortality. Whatever may have been her original plan for framing Wei Ying, now that the cards were on the table there was no way she would let such a feast slip her fingers. She must be patient still, she must, for to imagine a world in which Jiang Cheng was already dead…

No, he refused to even picture such a world.

“She took him, and you don’t know where,” he surmised, his voice still sounding painfully numb.

The ice burned him. How dare she. Did she not know that Jiang Cheng was his, or that he would rip her apart with claws and teeth for stealing what belonged to him?

Wei Ying was not much of a fighter, and he rarely took joy in violence. But even the gentlest, weakest huli jing was still a yao at the end of the day – and a huli jing could be cruel as much as it could be kind.

“We’ve been searching near town for a shichen now and couldn’t find him. Nor you,” Tang Yun added, accusation clear in her voice.

“We never tracked down her burrow. That’s where she took him.” He spoke with certainty, feeling the truth of it in his heart. It was easy to figure out. This was what he would do in her place. Wei Ying took a deep breath, the pieces from the past weeks all falling into place.

He had been close to finding her burrow, he’d already had a suspicion but had been too distracted by Jiang Cheng to follow up on it, and then the business with the tiger yaoguai had distracted him further. But she had tried to turn the tiger into a puppet, mimicking a cultivation she would have witnessed in Qishan, and hadn’t they already theorized her being tainted by the Yin Iron’s influence?

“I need to talk to the shopkeeper Zhao,” he said abruptly, already turning away from Tang Yun as he spoke, caring little if she followed him or not. It didn’t matter, as long as she didn’t stop him, or waste his time with stupid questions. “I have to ask him if that Huang uncle ever mentioned praying at an old fox shrine further north in Qishan.”

Chapter Text

He was a fool. He was an absolute, utter fool and if he lost his pelt for it, he would have nobody but himself to blame.

And yet, here Wei Ying was – clinging to Tang Yun while he balanced on her sword as six Yunmeng Jiang disciples and one huli jing raced north, keeping so low over the top of the trees that Wei Ying at times felt tempted to reach out and try to run his fingers through lush greenery.

If he had any common sense at all, he would jump off her sword and run for the hills. What was he even thinking to try and play the hero? This wasn’t some teahouse tale, yesterday had driven that lesson home as well as anything could – and yet here he was, making the same foolish mistakes again as if yesterday had never happened.

But how could he turn away from Jiang Cheng when he was in danger?

If he were to be perfectly honest with himself – which he had no intention to be – he would have to admit that it hadn’t even been much of a decision at all. There had been no choice made to stay or to run. Once he learned that Jiang Cheng’s life was in danger, he had simply leaped into action without a second thought. What was there to think about?

No, he could never walk away not knowing if Jiang Cheng lived or died.

He would simply… Well, he would simply have to hope that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t turn around to attack him as soon as he caught sight of Wei Ying. Would have to hope that he would at least focus on taking down the greater threat first and then… Well, then Wei Ying would be able to slip away before the Yunmeng Jiang group took to hunting him instead. Or something in that vein. Maybe. It wasn’t like he had a plan beyond tracking down Jiang Cheng and hoping that A-Fen wouldn’t kill them all.

There could be no doubt about it: Wei Ying was a fool.

He was a giant, foolish fool who was going to lose his pelt over lovesick heroics for a man who hated his very existence and would sooner see him dead than alive. Presumably. Whatever hope he had for a better ending…. He tried to squash it down, even as his mind – always more prone to taking action than moping – itched to come up with a thousand clever plans to convince Jiang Cheng of his good intentions. But it didn’t matter how perfect or convincing his explanation was when Jiang Cheng didn’t want to listen, when Jiang Cheng had already condemned him in his heart. But Jiang Cheng had kept his secret and walked into a trap trying to meet him to hear him out, didn’t that mean anything? No. No. He mustn’t hope. Foolish hope would only lead to more heartache.

So his thoughts kept cycling during the flight while he cursed the Yunmeng Jiang disciples for flying in grim silence. What he wouldn’t have given for banter or even hostility to distract him – but when a few attempts to pull them into conversation failed, he didn’t dare push either. None but their youngest shimei actually liked him and without Jiang Cheng around to vouch for him, he wouldn’t put it past them to make him walk.

“I see ruins,” reported a male disciple. He had flown ahead of the formation to scout and must have a very funny idea of seeing because by now, there was hardly anything to be seen at all with only a sliver of moonlight illuminating the night. They all seemed to treat his word as reliable, though, so maybe he was good at scouting. Wei Ying only knew he was surnamed Kuang and most of them called him their shixiong, sometimes using a number instead of his name.

The martial family hierarchy of the Jiang disciples was still endlessly confusing to Wei Ying, and he hadn’t been terribly interested in untangling it either when he could be ogling Jiang Cheng’s ass instead. Wei Ying felt a twinge of sentimental regret that he would never get the chance to puzzle it out now, even if he survived this night.

“That’s it then,” Tang Yun said, sounding very grim and business-like in a manner that made Wei Ying’s heart twinge with how it reminded him of Jiang Cheng, “Get ready for battle. We will be facing a nine-tailed huli jing, no word on whether there will be lesser yaoguai aiding her. You all know what this means.”

That was nice. Wei Ying pouted. He did not know what this meant to them. Whatever battle planning they had done, he hadn’t been invited – it was harder than he would have liked to shake off the pang of hurt he felt at this realization.

“Make sure you don’t attack the wrong fox,” he snarked, and then, since the fox was already out of the bag, “I too have nine tails in my animal form.”

He could read the confusion and questions on the faces of the cultivators, but that Kuang-shixiong of theirs was already leading them into a steep descent leaving no time for interrogations.

The fox shrine had been destroyed 500 years ago and in the many years since, whatever spells had prevented it from being swallowed up by the forest had long since faded. It was nearly invisible from above.

Since there was no clearing left, the scout had them descend below the tree line a short distance away where a brook had created a gap in the dense foliage. They didn’t step off their swords as Wei Ying had expected, though, they just sank lower and wove between the trees in some mad, death-defying obstacle course.

Speed was important, he understood; they were hoping to take advantage of whatever meager element of surprise they might be able to wrest away from their opponent. Considering their enemy had been several steps ahead of them all along, Wei Ying thought it overly optimistic. Still, he understood that they had to try.

Either way, with this mad dash they quickly reached the rotting walls of a small shrine. The wood was blackened, and Wei Ying spied a tree growing through the roof. Still, for a wood building that had been abandoned 500 years ago, it was unnaturally well-preserved.

Even the two stone foxes flanking the door hadn’t lost the contours of their faces, though they were green with moss.

Wei Ying’s belly fluttered with worry.

If this place still held fox magic – and it did, he could feel both old and new energies layered over it – then there was no telling what would await them.

“We might be walking into an active illusion,” he whispered to the group of Yunmeng Jiang disciples, and he hated that even he couldn’t tell. With A-Fen so much stronger than himself, she could easily hide illusions under illusions and he would only find what she wanted him to see.

The men and women of Yunmeng Jiang exchanged determined looks and Wei Ying braced himself for facing all his demons at once.

On the outside, the fox shrine deep in the woods was only that – a humble one-room shrine to bring offerings, barely more than a hut.

As they looked through the open door, it was what they saw. Rotting wooden walls, the tree growing in the center of the room.

Yet once they stepped through…

So much for might be walking into an illusion.

They stood on a large courtyard paved with stone, with an imposing, palace-like building looming above them at the far end of the courtyard, up a flight of stairs. The staircase was flanked by the same fox statues as the door to the real shrine, though they looked newly carved and held red ruby eyes that glowed with demonic qi.

In the middle of the courtyard, awaiting them, stood a beautiful woman with dark peach blossom eyes and a soft, round face. Her puckered red lips curved into a welcoming smile as she took in the sight of them. Her elaborately embroidered red robes fluttered around her in a nonexistent breeze that just so happened to perfectly accentuate her delicate curves.

At her feet laid Jiang Cheng, unconscious and uninjured at first sight, except when Wei Ying looked closer, he could spy a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

Wei Ying pushed aside Tang Yun, who had been trying to keep him behind her. He stepped in front of the group of cultivators.

“An entire temple just to worship you?” he sneered. “Isn’t that a little bit pathetic, A-Fen?”

“A-Fen!” She laughed, bright and beautiful, a laugh like the crystal-clear tinkling of water or jewels. Her voice was sweet and lovely, so enchanting that you would want to listen to it for hours even if she spit nothing but curses, for it would still be the most beautiful sound your ears had ever heard. “Did you never learn more about me than the name I gave that brat?” Her smile brightened into something radiant and seductive all at once. “Now which one of us is a little bit pathetic?”

He bristled, "You...!"

Her clear, sweet laughter rang over the courtyard like the song of tinkling bells, “Look at this child!” She flashed him and the cultivators behind him another dazzling smile. “You may call this big sister Da Ji.”

Behind him, he heard the humans shift uneasily. His nerves fluttered, too, but he pushed aside every worried thought wondering if she could really be that legendary Da Ji from the stories about King Zhou. It was another game she was playing, another layer of illusions. Even just considering it would be playing her game, and he was fucking tired of playing her games.

Wei Ying made a show of tapping his nose thoughtfully and squinting at her. “Sister? Aren’t you more of an auntie?”

Rage flashed in her beguiling peach blossom eyes before they turned gentle and enchanting once more.

“Doesn’t it look like Nightless City?” he heard little Qiu Lian whisper behind him, clearly terrible at whispers, and one of her martial brothers added, “Wen Ruohan’s palace.”

Their comments meant little to Wei Ying, who had never been to the Nightless City, but good. If they were questioning and finding flaws in the illusions, they were less likely to get caught up in them.

Wei Ying had just opened his mouth for another jab when Tang Yun stepped up to his side and silenced him with a raised hand. He pouted only a little bit, honestly.

“That’s enough chitchat,” she said, stern and utterly unenchanted. “We will call you by whatever name you want but if you don't return our sect leader, we will take him by force.”

Da Ji’s smile didn’t falter, though Wei Ying could have sworn he saw a hint of cruelty shine through in her eyes along with the amusement. “Will you? You and…?” She let her eyes wander over the group of Yunmeng Jiang seniors, over Wei Ying.

But the cultivators had had enough. Wei Ying heard the sound of swords being unsheathed beside and behind him.

He flexed his right hand and the red mist exuding from his fingers coalesced into his trusty blade Suibian.

Da Ji looked at them and tsked. “Swords. Why is it always swords? How unimaginative.” And yet, a blade appeared in her hand, too. Black mist wafted around it, the resentment it had cultivated so strong that Wei Ying wouldn’t dare wager if the blade was an illusion or an actual resentful artifact.

Wei Ying had expected something bigger, some grand opening with explosions or dazzling feats of cultivation, yet the disciples only leaped forward for a physical attack, surging around the startled Wei Ying as if he wasn’t even there. They threw themselves into a heated swords battle with the self-declared Da Ji, somehow six against one turning into a battle where she easily held her ground, dodging and ducking and leaping, kicking them away or conjuring up a sheathe to block their blades as if this were mere child’s play.

The group moved, while Jiang Cheng remained crumpled where she had stood, and Wei Ying understood why they had only attacked with their blades.

While the cultivators kept Da Ji occupied, Wei Ying darted to Jiang Cheng’s side.

He fell to his knees and carefully cradled his head in shaky hands. His thumb rubbed away the dried blood pooling at the corner of his mouth, a pained whine escaping him at the sight. Jiang Cheng was pale and he looked terribly lifeless, though his chest rose and sank steadily as if he were merely in a disturbingly deep sleep. Yet the pained frown he wore even now betrayed that this was anything but restful sleep, and Wei Ying ached to chase it away.

“A-Cheng,” he whispered urgently, eyes flickering towards the battle to make sure Da Ji was still occupied before looking once more at his concerningly wan face. “A-Cheng, they need you to wake up… I need you to wake up.” He grasped for his wrist, his shaking fingers so clumsy in his haste that it nearly slipped out of his grasp. He fumbled and cursed under his breath before he finally got his fingers properly on his pulse to examine his qi flow.

Wei Ying sucked in a sharp breath of dismay as he explored the ravaged landscape of Jiang Cheng’s meridians, “Well, it…” He forced himself to exhale. “It could be worse.” It didn’t look like there would be permanent damage, as far as he could tell. That was the only good news. Jiang Cheng’s golden core was in turmoil from whatever had been used, and the foreign qi continued to wreak havoc in his meridians. If nothing was done, he might go into a qi deviation without ever waking up. But it could have been worse. Wei Ying was here now and he would fix this… somehow.

“Don’t worry, Jiang Cheng, we’ll have you fixed in just a moment. Just a moment.” He propped him upright in front of him and shoved hands wreathed in red energy against Jiang Cheng’s back. His own qi flooded him, burning away Da Ji’s tainted presence and righting, balancing his qi. He shared his own energies freely once this was done, giving as much as he dared before he finally removed the compulsion that kept Jiang Cheng trapped in an unnatural sleep.

Jiang Cheng came awake with a pained cough that had him spitting another blood clot.

Sitting right behind him, Wei Ying’s heart fluttered with a sudden spike of anxiety. He had been so occupied with fixing Jiang Cheng and waking him up, he hadn’t even considered what waking him up would mean for himself. Such as having to face an awake Jiang Cheng, who still hated Wei Ying and thought him the villain.

He licked his lips. His ears flicked nervously. “Jiang Cheng…”

Somewhere behind them, there was an animalistic snarl, a bright flash of light, and the whoosh of air pressure in the wake of a qi blast. A cultivator was sent flying and crashed into the ground right by Jiang Cheng’s side.

“Li Qiang!” Jiang Cheng yelled in alarm and scrambled to his feet on buckling legs so he could haul up his dazed disciple. Steadying the other man though he could barely hold himself upright, he turned his face towards Wei Ying and looked at him with eyes that looked so large and vulnerable that the sight of them made Wei Ying’s heart ache. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again, looking pained and at a loss with only a sigh having escaped.

Was a lack of condemnation enough to count as the opposite? Was it enough to warrant being here, or staying now that Jiang Cheng was awake and free to make an informed choice on his own doom?

Wei Ying remained sitting where they had knelt and felt cold for having once more lost Jiang Cheng’s warmth.

He should leave. If he had any common sense or self-respect as a fox at all, he would leave. He would walk away and forget that he had ever known a Jiang Wanyin of Yunmeng Jiang, or that his fate had mattered to him.

Jiang Cheng released Li Qiang and forced himself to straighten. First, his spine straightened, then his shoulders. Last but not least, he lifted his chin haughtily. Determination schooled his chiseled face into something out of some great general’s painting. Even now, Wei Ying couldn’t help that his eyes lingered on him and feasted on the view. How funny that it turned out his sweet, silly Jiang Cheng had the face of someone born to be painted at heroic last stands.

Zidian sparked to life and lashed forward just as Da Ji sent the other five disciples flying all at once, scattered in every direction. The whip found the opening she herself had given him by blasting them away, it came down upon her and nicked her shoulder right before another red blast of pure, raw qi could reflect it away from her.

Her smile showed a glimpse of fangs, though she still looked human otherwise. At her age, she would have long since cultivated a fully human body but that wouldn’t stop her from showing what beastly features she chose to display. It certainly wouldn’t keep her from giving herself lethal claws and fangs if it suited her better this way. There were very few things a huli jing of her age and cultivation couldn’t do. “Look who is awake. Just as I was getting bored of playing with the children.”

“Well then.” Wei Ying wasn’t even thinking about his words, they just came to him. It felt right to speak up, to stand his ground. Much like with choosing to come for Jiang Cheng or not, there had never been any decision to make at all. Her eyes found him, and it felt like she was finally truly seeing him. Wei Ying smiled. His smile showed fangs, too. “I would hate to bore a pretty girl.”

Jiang Cheng leaped into the air and onto his sword, he darted forward with Zidian lashing down from above while his disciples attacked like a flock of furious, blue and lilac birds on the ground.

Wei Ying’s Suibian glowed red with his qi as he finally threw himself into the fray. His blade met Da Ji’s, one blade wreathed in red and the other in black. Their power clashed and they were both thrown back from the force of it. He skidded on his heels and as soon as he could revert his momentum, Wei Ying leaped forward again in a qinggong-fueled high jump. Zidian only narrowly missed the tip of his bushy tail but he had no time for such worries – Da Ji was already coming for him, her clawed left hand swiping at him while her sword hand warded off Zidian.

The flock of cultivators darted forward again, their spiritual swords glinting. They leaped and dashed, always attacking in groups but always swatted away like mere flies, and only given relief now by Zidian and Suibian’s attacks.

The battle fell into a strange rhythm, almost a predictable one albeit not a pleasant one. Wei Ying could not say how much time passed. Here, under the false sky of this illusory courtyard, the sun rose and sunk only at Da Ji’s behest.

Jiang Cheng, thrown to his knees, had Sandu swipe at her from above controlled by sword seals even while his own body faltered.

Da Ji only laughed mockingly and leaped up, her dainty, slippered foot finding Sandu’s hilt so she could use it as a stepping stone to catapult herself higher. She whirled and her black-wreathed blade glowed a sickly mix of black and red, thrumming with more power than it had held at any point before during this battle.

Wei Ying yelled a warning to the flock of cultivators that had once more been driven to the ground as if they were nothing but a bunch of unruly kits to be shoved off.

The huli jing came down with a strike cutting a wide swathe through the air. She landed gracefully on her knees and the blast of qi and resentful energy she had been gathering exploded out of her sword like a flood wave.

Wei Ying watched his little friend Qiu scream and bowl over, blood leaking out of her mouth as she panted, while Tang Yun cursed and clutched her ribs.

They didn’t stand a chance like this. Oh, they would be able to hold their own in a fair sword duel, the great sects trained their cultivators since childhood with the sword, while he had yet to meet a huli jing with a true passion for mastering that kind of blade. But a nine-tails of her age and power would not tire, even if the fight lasted all night and day and another night. She would not tire and would not run out of qi reserves, while the Yunmeng disciples would.

Except for this one strike with Zidian when Jiang Cheng joined the fight, none of them had managed to touch her yet. Not even Wei Ying.

Most damning of all, she was still fighting them with the blade. She hadn’t even started using her actual strengths yet. If by some miracle, they ever got the upper hand, she would stop toying with them and fight like a huli jing – and they were inside her illusion.

“Gullible children,” Da Ji sneered. “You were so easy to fool. Lovesick children, believing in fairytale romances but oh so gullible. I asked you before, Sandu Shengshou: Did you enjoy my little puppet gift?”

Oh, but he wanted to rip her into pieces. For a moment, Wei Ying fantasized about being strong and fast enough to dart forward faster than she could react and simply rip her apart limb for limb, and only then tear out her throat with his fangs. Her blood would be hot when it splashed onto his face and she would never again touch what was his.

“He is gullible,” Wei Ying chimed in, his head held high, a sharp grin twisting his face. “If it had been my puppet, I would not have failed to animate it.”

Jiang Cheng growled his annoyance where he crouched, Zidian in his right hand and Sandu in the left, ready to spring back into battle. There was a gash in the back of his robes, Wei Ying noted with worry. With the purple fabric of his robes, it was hard to tell if the darker spots were sweat or blood.

Once again, he spied a flash of rage in Da Ji’s eyes, the only warning before she shot forward with breathtaking speed - right at Jiang Cheng, who was still crouching.

Wei Ying did not think. He reacted.

He leaped, Suibian forgotten and vanishing back into red mist as Wei Ying shifted, his humanoid form growing smaller, more compact, eight more tails sprouting to steer him through the air.

He slammed into Da Ji right as she stretched out her clawed hand to swipe at Jiang Cheng’s throat and sent them both tumbling. He clawed and bit, fox fangs tearing into fabric and flesh, digging in deep and ripping until the human flesh grew fur and another set of sharp fox teeth dug into his hind leg.

They finally landed in a tangle of legs and tails.

Wei Ying darted out of reach as the other fox came to her feet and shook herself.

“You have nothing but cheap tricks,” Wei Ying scoffed, his human voice clear as ever though he had paws and fur and a pointy snout. His nine tails stood upright and stiff in agitation. He was tired of this. Tired of being toyed with, of seeing Jiang Cheng toyed with. Tired of seeing him bleed for nothing but their enemy’s amusement. Jiang Cheng was his. His to cherish, his to bleed. Nobody was allowed to torment him.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Jiang Cheng shoot him a concerned look, as if Wei Ying hadn’t shifted at all.

“Will we keep fighting like humans,” Wei Ying demanded, “Or are you finally ready to face me as a huli jing?”

Chapter Text

Wei Ying did not wait for a response after issuing his challenge. He had not asked this question for her benefit.

He darted in as a fox, his attacks quick and clever, darting between the legs of the humans who were still a little bit sluggish, caught off-guard by suddenly bringing their swords against the smaller target of an actual fox. They were fast but Da Ji was faster, she danced between the strikes and slashes of their sword and leaped over Zidian’s length as if it was a mere toy swung for her amusement.

Wei Ying transformed again and reached into a pouch inside his sleeve as soon as his paws had turned into hands. He flicked a handful of grains of rice right into the fray. As they flew, each grain turned into a blade so wickedly sharp they cut through the air with a musical sound.

The fox twisted mid-air, rolling. When she landed, she did so on two human feet, though she now sported all nine tails openly. Several tufts of red fur fluttered to the ground around her.

Wei Ying laughed. “If you wanted a shave for your tails, you only needed to ask.”

A swarm of cultivator blades followed his example, the blades sent by their masters who stayed safely behind Wei Ying now, and of course she met each of them easily, sending them careening off course.

The next attack wave by their spiritual swords was followed by a wave of exploding talismans courtesy of Wei Ying. It blasted the paved stone of the courtyard into broken, jagged pieces and a cloud of pebbles.

Da Ji, thrown back by the blast, slammed her hands into the ground and the cracked pieces of stone rose, turning wickedly sharp like blades in a terrible mimicry of Wei Ying’s little rice trick. Zidian flashed through the air to pluck the rubble turned projectiles out of the air and Wei Ying reached out with a blast of power, trying to force them back into their original shape.

A scream.

“Shimei!”

One of the female cultivators, Xie something, was cradling her stomach, blood welling up between her fingers. Two others scrambled to her side, pure fear shining in their eyes.

“It won’t change a thing how you fight me,” Da Ji said, once more smiling this lovely, enchanting smile of a flawless, mild-mannered beauty. “You will all be defeated, and your cultivation will bring me closer to immortality.” She shook her head in mock dismay. “I might have been satisfied with little Wei Ying’s death. A successful night hunt, the huli jing threat vanquished… The pride of a great sect would not have allowed you to investigate further, no matter what rumors reached you. This town would have been mine to rule and feast on.  But you couldn’t follow the rules. You had to go and fall in love with him, and you would not kill him no matter what I did to push you.” She shrugged, a pretty pout on her lips. “Now you are all going to die.”

“Personally, I believe that grand, villainous speeches are overdone,” Wei Ying shot back, undaunted and trying his best not to sound winded.

Oh, but he was daunted. He just couldn’t let it show. They still hadn’t been able to touch Da Ji, and he had already established that at this rate of effort she put into the fight, she could keep going for days, maybe weeks.

But what could he do?

Wei Ying’s eyes flickered to the injured cultivator. Or the one injured so badly that it couldn’t be ignored, anyway. When he looked closer, he saw scratches and cuts on all of them. Their robes bore red patches here and cuts there. Small, lucky hits, but they would pile up with time. And more damning yet, it wouldn’t be so much the physical exertion wearing them down but the sheer onslaught of qi Da Ji could put into each attack. Even a mere sword parry from her was like facing the full blast of a spiritual storm.

What could he do but endure?

The battle continued, now one cultivator short, with the injured woman leaning against one of the fox statues by the staircase and frantically cycling qi as if she stood any chance of healing herself fast enough to rejoin the fight. Of course, as things stood now, there was a very good chance she would have to. If they were all going to die anyway, it was better to die fast and standing than to politely wait for death to make it your turn.

For now, they fell back into the rhythm of battle.

Explosions shook the courtyard and wafts of smoke gave them a moment’s reprieve while swords shot through the air even as their wielders were on the ground, trying to remember how to force breath into burning lungs.

Wei Ying lost count of how often he shifted, or of the illusions he conjured up, or how many talismans he drew with his blood. Blades and arrows and vines all took shape under his hands, the electric hiss and crackle of Zidian sank so deeply into his ears it echoed in them even in the rare moments the whip was silent.

And yet, they were not making ground.

Losing ground, rather, they kept losing ground as another cultivator went down – his little Qiu-meimei, caught in a terrifying blast of flower petals Da Ji had illusioned up and turned sharp enough to cut through flesh like a blade. The petals were red and became the bed she laid on when she fell and bled, the red of her blood mingling with the red of the petals until there was only red, red, red.

He had never had the opportunity to play around much with musical cultivation, but he whipped up a dizi from the torn-off hem of his robe and tried to scatter her waves of qi with his own carried and amplified by the sound. It was new and mildly interesting enough to draw Da Ji’s attention, which gave Jiang Cheng a reprieve to cough up more blood clots in peace. His cultivation had been damaged in the fight that saw him captured, Wei Ying recalled with dismay; he had dominated the battlefield so thoroughly that Wei Ying had completely forgotten he had gone into this battle already carrying spiritual injuries.

Wei Ying couldn’t say how many hours they had been fighting. The sky, Da Ji’s illusory sky, remained unchanged.

The next cultivator to go down was taken out by a plain blast of pure, unfettered qi.

At times, she didn’t even bother with illusions anymore but simply bombarded them with black waves of sheer power, and when she still used illusions or her sword it felt like she was doing it simply to amuse herself.

There was no time to check on the man, Wei Ying could only hope that Da Ji still meant to make use of their cultivation, and he had thus only been knocked out, not killed.

The fourth to go down was Kuang-shixiong the scout, who threw himself into another blast of sharpened stones intended for Wei Ying. He managed to throw back the onslaught with a storm of his qi – but that left him open for the next attack, claws sheathed in glowing red raking all the way down his back when the woman turned fox turned woman catapulted herself over his head in the wake of her stone blast to swipe at him from behind.

They were getting tired and it made them sloppy. Wei Ying wasn’t much of a martial fox but he didn’t need to be to read the signs: It would only get worse from here on.

And this right here, this nightmare was why they had spent so much time cautiously investigating instead of trying to directly hunt down the huli jing. The only way a huli jing would be found was if they wanted to be found, and if they wanted to be found… It would be like here, like now, on their own territory to play a lethal game by their rules.

Bitterness and desperation boiled away in Wei Ying even as his body went through the mechanics of the fight.

If they hadn’t been turned against one another, if they hadn’t been divided, if they hadn’t been forced into the final battle completely unprepared and with no proper plan…

This battle was looking hopeless, but they were still fighting after endless hours. These cultivators weren’t bad fighters, for all they were hopelessly outclassed each on their own. If they could have met on a well-prepared battlefield of their own choosing, with arrays worked into the ground and walls, with cultivational treasures to break through her illusions – they were Jiangs, Yunmeng Jiang with their infamous bells! If they could have set up a formation of their clarity bells instead of each bell carried separately being too weak to withstand her power…

The bells, had they even rung ever since they stepped into the shrine? Wei Ying had long since stopped paying attention to their tinkle, inaudible to an ordinary person’s ears but very much impossible to ignore for someone who lived and breathed illusions as he did. Was the clarity bell how Jiang Cheng had seen through him when they first met? Had it been how he broke into his burrow? No, he had to focus. It didn’t matter anymore, for the bells had gone silent, he was sure of it now, and he could even make an educated guess that these damned fox statues with the glowing eyes were to blame for it – but knowing was useless when his cultivation was too weak to break Da Ji’s far stronger spells.

Now all of this was just regret and what could have been, while the reality was a fifth disciple going down, then a sixth.

Just him and Jiang Cheng now, and even the purple of his robes couldn’t hide Jiang Cheng’s uncounted bloodstains anymore.

Everything hurt, even the hairs of his furry ears hurt. Wei Ying sloppily wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled through reddened teeth. He felt hot and cold all at once, there was ice burning away in his meridians, all coming from the curse mark on his left thigh. What a dirty hit that had been.

He ached, yet he forced himself back to his feet.

They couldn’t win. Not like this. Not with the cultivators forced into battle ill-prepared, not with Wei Ying too weak. So wretchedly weak, he wanted to cry from the sheer frustration of it because he was trying, he was trying so hard, he was using every brilliant move he had ever thought of and some more. It simply wasn’t enough because there was a chasm of 800 years between her cultivation and his, and he had not the means to bridge it.

“Alright,” he said, trying for optimism he didn’t feel anymore. “Time for the real fun to begin.”

The battle continued, Wei Ying on the ground and Jiang Cheng once again attacking from Sandu, and they needed no words, only one long, meaningful look during a moment’s reprieve for them both to know it wouldn’t be much longer now.

Jiang Cheng’s face was marred all over with claw marks, with streaks of blood, and even with cuts of the blade. His bottom lip was swollen after he had fallen badly and split it open. His hair hung tangled and unrestrained, his lovely lotus guan long gone. He was more beautiful than ever before in Wei Ying’s eyes.

He was so beautiful and he looked at Wei Ying once more with love in his eyes – and he would die here, his life’s worth of cultivation torn from him, his meridians destroyed in the process, his golden core and his very life bled dry.

There was one thing Wei Ying knew for a fact about this battle, and it was that he could not let Jiang Cheng die today.

If only he were stronger…

If only he were stronger.

If only he were a real nine-tails instead of a one-tailed fox who had the powers of a much stronger fox locked away inside him where they were useless to him.

If only.

If only…

Zidian’s lashes were coming slower. Its bright lightning had dimmed.

The light in Jiang Cheng’s eyes was dimmed, too, though his grim determination shone all the brighter for it.

He would not die at Da Ji’s choosing to further her cultivation, Wei Ying realized as he countered another sword strike with something near numbness. Jiang Cheng was no longer fighting to win. Jiang Cheng was now fighting to force her to kill him in battle so that he would not be used to strengthen her further. An honorable cause, for it would make the task even more dangerous for his disciples when they inevitably came to avenge him.

That was a nice thought but Wei Ying refused.

“You see the weakness of these humans, little kit,” Da Ji said, and her voice was so lovely and pure even as she walked towards them, her laughter like bells while blood-soaked Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying knelt on the ground, panting and barely holding one another upright. Her cold eyes looked at him with faint interest, like he was some interesting insect she had caught. “You were meant to die but you have proven yourself hardier than I thought, and you beguiled the leader of a great sect. I would take you for my servant while I build what is mine, and you would live.”

Breathless, in pain, Wei Ying still somehow found the strength to laugh in her face. Spite, that was how. Sheer stubborn spite. She dared to try and take Jiang Cheng from him. Who did she think she was? Was he not a fox of power, too? He carried inside him the legacy of Baoshan Sanren's celestial mountain and bore nine tails as proof of it. He couldn’t use it, no, but…

He never had tried to use it, all of it at once, had he? It wasn’t that he couldn’t unlock it, not really. It was just that if he unlocked it, he would be overwhelmed. It would destroy him. He wasn’t strong enough to make all that raw power his own. It would very likely kill him, or else make him wish he were dead. But he carried this power within him – and still, she dared to take what was his.

Wei Ying laughed. “Was it ever about the town?” he chuckled. Even on hands and knees, he swayed. He was so tired. He must have caught some solid qi blasts, too. Or the curse. Yes. The curse. Both, maybe. He forced his head back up and met her eyes. “Or were you after my mother’s power all along?” His lips twisted into a smile. “I bet I would have been very grateful to my benefactor. I can see it just now. You swooping in, saving me at the very last moment from a mob of hateful cultivators hunting me down without reason.” That smile twisted further, bitter, mournful. ”Ever since I was a parentless kit, I hoped and prayed someone would come and protect me. I would have been so grateful, I would have willingly let you take my mother’s gift.“

Had this been the plan all along? Or was it the exhaustion creating phantasms in his mind? Did it even matter, now that nothing mattered anymore?

Jiang Cheng’s hand found his and squeezed tight. Wei Ying focused on his warmth, he let himself be grounded by his touch.

For all his world-shaking revelation, Da Ji continued to look unimpressed. She barely had a hair out of place, even now, but then this was her illusion and she controlled everything within. “Baoshan Sanren won’t be able to blame me, I offered you an escape. It is your pride that will kill you, not I.”

Wei Ying interlaced his fingers with Jiang Cheng’s. “Keep her busy for as long as you can,” he said. He didn’t even try to whisper. She would know the moment he began but whether she knew or not didn’t matter as long as…

“I won’t let her get to you while I live,” Jiang Cheng vowed, his voice as painfully earnest as was his nature.

Their eyes met for a moment and Wei Ying ached. He wished more than he could put into words that they had time for one last kiss. Jiang Cheng had truly never been more beautiful.

Jiang Cheng smiled. He had such a sweet smile. It would be worth it to preserve this smile.

The warmth of Jiang Cheng’s hand vanished as he got to his feet. Wei Ying closed his eyes and forced himself into meditation right here and now, in the middle of the battlefield.

He sank and sank, sank all the way down to the very foundations of the power he carried within him.

This is the last gift I can give you, little fluffball, he heard his mother’s voice, weak with her dying breath. If your situation is ever as hopeless as ours was…

The gift he had been given was not a gift of power to be slowly absorbed over the course of centuries. It was the same gift Cangse Sanren had possessed, the one her master had gifted her with when she walked down the celestial mountain. It was not a gift meant to save him from his own doom, but it may just be enough to save a loved one from sharing his doom.

Don’t cry. You will live, A-Ying, that’s the only thing that matters.

Wei Ying exhaled.

His mother’s last blood-wet breaths and his own kit cries mingled with Jiang Cheng’s desperate gurgles.

Wei Ying exhaled. His breath released and with this breath, he released the shield that kept his mother’s last gift locked away.

When Wei Ying opened his eyes, they burned red.

These eyes found Jiang Cheng, forced onto his knees while Da Ji stood over him, one taloned hand around his throat choking him while the other dug bloody claws deep into his cheek in a mockery of a tender caress.

Wei Ying burned red. His entire world was burning red.

“You don’t get to touch him. Nobody gets to touch him.”

They crashed into another halfway, two nine-tailed foxes blasting into one another with the full force of their qi.

Da Ji was thrown back and Wei Ying pursued. Doors within his mind that had been impossible to pry at were slammed wide open as the foreign qi flooded his meridians and scorched them like a stream of lava wherever it went. There were no limits to his cultivation now, breakthroughs that had been centuries away felt like child’s play as he burst through every limit he had ever imagined and some more.

He was power. He was burning alive.

He hammered at the defenses of the older huli jing, meeting her claw for claw and blow for blow, striking back at her for every blast of qi she sent his way.

Their battle took them over the length of the courtyard and Wei Ying’s eyes found the fox statues, their eyes glowing as red as his own.

They were the anchor of the arrays that silenced the clarity bells, as he had theorized before, back when he was too weak to do anything with this knowledge.

Now, all he needed to do was thrust out his fists and intend and the foxes shattered into a thousand chunks of stone.

Behind him, the fox who called herself Da Ji howled with fury. It almost drowned out the sweet tinkle of a clarity bell.

It was no victory but it was the first real progress in ages and Wei Ying felt awash with jubilation – he took all the relief and happiness and shaped it into determination, and then he pushed himself even further. He grasped that foreign qi and made it his own, and used it to push himself farther, discovering new heights of cultivation he shouldn’t have climbed for centuries yet.

He was burning. He was being burned alive.

Da Ji shifted back to human form and stomped her right foot – beneath her dainty foot, the stone of the courtyard shattered and lifted, a hundred, a thousand pieces of rubble transformed into blades.

“Ring the bells!” Jiang Cheng yelled. “All of them!”

Wei Ying couldn’t afford to look away even as he heard frantic albeit slow movement, Jiang Cheng’s sluggish steps accompanied by pained gasps, people shuffling, maybe crawling, and he figured the awake Yunmeng disciples were trying to get to the side of their unconscious – dead? he refused to consider it – martial siblings so they could ring their bells, too.

He wanted to look, to check on Jiang Cheng, but he could not.

He was burning.

He stood, a fox standing tall and proud in defiance, wreathed in red, and barked his challenge.

Long before it even touched him, the qi of the nine-tails’ attack slammed into him like being hit with the broadside of a stone wall to the face. Wei Ying focused and flared out his own power.

The blades crashed into the shield of red surrounding Wei Ying and bounced back.

The bells rang a sweet tinkling melody.

The glinting, metallic silver of the blades flickered, revealing the black stone beneath even as they fell.

“Keep ringing, and remember the courtyard is just another illusion!” Jiang Cheng yelled and then he was moving again, and Wei Ying was vaguely aware he was moving towards him. Fool. What was he doing?

Wei Ying was burning alive.

Jiang Cheng placed himself at his side and Wei Ying flashed him a quick smile.

Zidian buzzed to life with the last vestiges of Jiang Cheng’s strength, its light dimmed but the clench of Jiang Cheng’s jaw all the more determined for it. Dripping blood was painting the courtyard where Jiang Cheng stood, and Wei Ying burned even brighter for it.

Da Ji careened towards them. Jiang Cheng leaped into the air with Zidian swinging, somehow still finding the strength for one more burst of qinggong, while Wei Ying met her head on, waves of qi clashing and claws sheathed in red flashing.

It was a different battle now that Wei Ying was burning. He felt himself pushing forward where he had been giving ground earlier, and the bells were still ringing. Around them, the palace flickered here, the courtyard flickered there, and a space that was the size of a palace’s courtyard was momentarily reduced to a rotting one-room shrine.

Da Ji missed a dodge.

In the end, this was all it took.

Maybe she was distracted by her illusions falling apart around her or maybe by her rage at her plans falling apart around her, too; she did not dodge quite fast enough to evade Zidian’s lash from getting her right across the back. In the short moment her body locked up with the electric shock of the lightning sting, in that blink of an eye for which Zidian managed to sap away at her incredible cultivation, Wei Ying struck.

His claws sank into her throat and his qi burned into her, burning through her, destroying her from the inside out.

Around them, the courtyard in front of Wen Ruohan’s Sun Palace became a dusty little shrine in the woods, with a tree growing through the roof in the middle of it.

Wei Ying yanked back his claws and watched his enemy drop to the ground, just as dead as that failed puppet she had planted in his burrow.

He was burning.

The last thing he was aware of was his knees hitting the ground, hard, and Jiang Cheng’s scream fading into blackness.

Chapter Text

“…is destroying him, he looks like he’s in the middle of a qi deviation…”

Wei Ying whined and buried his face deeper in the lap that served as his pillow, while trembling hands frantically petted his hair.

“Am not,” he croaked out. “Not a qi deviation.”

“Wei Ying! What did you do to yourself!”

“Ow.” He grimaced. “You’re loud.” The fact that Jiang Cheng only made a pained noise and didn’t yell at him some more told Wei Ying just as much about how serious this was as… Well, everything else. This was his body, after all.

He was still burning.

He coughed and Jiang Cheng gently helped him turn his head so he could spit out more blood, then he turned his head and blinked up at him through a red film. Oh.

“Am I bleeding from my eyes?” he asked as he looked up at Jiang Cheng’s bruised, battered, still so beautiful face. That would explain them thinking it was a qi deviation if he was bleeding from all seven apertures. At least Jiang Cheng looked like he had regained some of his strength while Wei Ying was passed out. Good. As long as he survived, it would have been worth it.

Jiang Cheng made another pained noise and he reached for him; his fingers were ever so gentle as they stroked over his cheek. They were so gentle when they caressed the rim of his furry ear, too, touching it so very gently as if he worried even the most tender touch would hurt him. There were tears in his eyes and Wei Ying decided that he hated it when Jiang Cheng cried. “I hate you,” he choked out, “why did you have to do that?”

He forced a smile onto his lips. It was a little bit lopsided but it was still a pretty good smile, considering the circumstances. “I like to be right. I’m annoying like that.”

“You…!” Jiang Cheng clutched him tightly to his chest, so very tightly, and he was trembling. Wei Ying could feel him trembling.

Wei Ying forced up a weak, annoyingly limp hand so he could wipe the tears from Jiang Cheng’s cheek. He left a streak of blood behind but it didn’t make Jiang Cheng any less pretty. “I’m not going to die,” he promised, still smiling. He was reasonably sure he would be able to keep this promise.

He was burning. He wasn’t okay. The foreign qi was still ripping him apart from the inside. But…

“When A-Niang died, it happened fast.” She’d had time for one spectacular, legendary attack that could have split mountains or scorched the sea, and then she’d had time to pass on her gift and that was it. Wei Ying had had time for a prolonged battle and for passing out and coming around again. This probably meant he wasn’t dying – not that kind of death, anyway.

If it hadn’t been for the Yunmeng Jiang disciples and their bells, and for Jiang Cheng standing beside him once more, would he too have been forced to put it all into a single devastating blow that tore him apart? His father had died to buy his mother the time to unlock her gift, then there had been nobody left to stand beside her to fight or help her protect Wei Ying. She’d had no choice but to go for a single killing blow.

“When she… What are you…” Jiang Cheng huffed. “It doesn’t matter. Later. You can explain later.”

That… would be a lot later, if what Wei Ying was starting to suspect was happening was really happening but somehow, he couldn’t find it in him to get upset about it though he knew he should. Must be the blood loss. Or the concussion. Or the fact that his cultivation was unraveling itself. Maybe it was some sort of qi deviation, after all. A qi implosion?

He hummed his agreement and decided to focus on the truly important things while he still could. “Are you going to kiss me now?”

Well. That wasn’t the reconciliation he’d had in mind, but it was very, very hard to think with him still burning like this and Jiang Cheng dripping tears on him and…

Jiang Cheng hefted him up once more and pulled him into a kiss, one hand steadying the back of Wei Ying’s head while the other clutched his upper arm and helped keep him upright.

Wei Ying was reasonably sure he wasn’t dying, so he used his not-dying strength to wrap his arms around Jiang Cheng’s neck and cling to him as he sank into the kiss he had thought he would never ever have again.

“I’m sorry,” Jiang Cheng got out between frantic kisses. “I wasn’t thinking, I couldn’t think, it…”

Wei Ying silenced him with lips against lips and his tongue dipping into Jiang Cheng’s mouth, eager to find his taste underneath the taste of blood.

“I should play hard to get.” He laughed into Jiang Cheng’s mouth and shifted against him, somehow shifting both their weight too much for how wobbly they both were and sending them crashing to the ground, him on top. It sent him into another wave of hysterical laughter that bordered on sobs. “I should. The first time you whipped me and it wasn’t even in a fun, sexy way!”

Laying on him, Wei Ying felt Jiang Cheng’s laughter as much as he heard it, and oh, but his heart felt so full to bursting with sheer happiness at the sound of it – he felt so happy that it hurt. It hurt just as the burning that wasn’t even burning all that much anymore; he was running out of things to burn.

Which must mean he was running out of time, too. If his thoughts weren’t quite so fuzzy, he suspected he would be raging at the unfairness of it all.

“The first time I whipped you was in the tavern,” Jiang Cheng corrected, as insufferable as ever, and Wei Ying loved him so much more for it.

“That’s worse!” he cried, still laughing and smiling, and he nearly face planted on Jiang Cheng’s nose in his clumsy attempt to move in for another kiss. He was still bleeding from his nose, his eyes, his ears, and his blood dripped down onto Jiang Cheng’s face as he leaned over him.

Vaguely, at the edge of his awareness, he knew that he should be asking the important questions. Jiang Cheng had been heavily injured. His disciples had been as well, some of them might be dead. But he didn’t want to ask. He had nearly run out of fuel to burn, and he was selfish, or maybe cowardly. He wanted his last memories to be of Jiang Cheng kissing him and laughing with him and looking at him like Wei Ying was his entire world.

“I’m sorry, too,” he whispered, his forehead pressed against Jiang Cheng’s. Bloody tears clung to his lashes. They fell. He didn’t want this to be his last moment. “I should have told you the full story.”

“It’s okay. You’re not dead, and you said you would be if you were going to die. That means we can do better. You’ll come to Lotus Pier and we’ll have all our lives to do better and…” Jiang Cheng sounded so desperately eager, so desperately hopeful. He clung to Wei Ying with the same desperation, holding on to him as if he expected him to be ripped from his arms again.

Wei Ying’s heart hurt.

He smiled and waited until Jiang Cheng had to take a breath between his frantic babbling about the beautiful future he was painting for them, then he said into that silence, “I destroyed my cultivation with these breakthroughs.” He said it, just like that, because there was no gentle way to deliver the truth, and he didn’t have the time to find one.

He wasn’t even burning anymore.

And Jiang Cheng? Jiang Cheng looked at him – and the thing about him, the thing Wei Ying so loved, was that he was smart. He could read in his eyes as the realizations fired off, one after the other like a fireworks display.

To destroy years’ worth of cultivation was always a danger for human cultivators if they used techniques wrongly or too soon, or as the result of a devastating attack. To destroy their entire foundation was far rarer, as feared and rare as golden cores being melted had been before it became an everyday occurrence during the Sunshot Campaign. It could still happen, under very specific, very unfortunate circumstances, most of which involved what Wei Ying had done – intentional self-sabotage for one moment of glory, going out as bright and explosive as a firework in the sky.

But Jiang Cheng was smart, and Wei Ying saw in his eyes when he came to the next step in this series of realizations.

Wei Ying was not a hapless human cultivator who would be set back in his cultivation to rebuilding his cultivation base from scratch. Wei Ying was a fox. And his greatest feat of cultivation? To have cultivated to full sentience and later still, to this humanoid body he wore now.

“It shouldn’t take more than a hundred years.” He smiled, even as tears fell from his eyes. They kept dripping onto Jiang Cheng’s face now, their tears kept mingling on his cheeks.

Jiang Cheng made a pained little keening noise at the back of his throat and cupped his face in both hands. He looked as if Wei Ying’s words had struck truer than any of Da Ji’s blades.

“Kiss me again,” Wei Ying pleaded, “I don’t want to remember you for your tears.” Even as the tears kept running from his own eyes. Such traitorous eyes: he wished Jiang Cheng would remember his smiles instead.

“Will you…” Jiang Cheng’s voice broke. He swallowed hard and he looked so miserable, so small, as if he hadn’t just taken down a nine-tails at Wei Ying’s side. “Will you remember me at all?”

He did smile then, a soft, mournful smile. “I was born to two huli jing. I was never quite an ordinary fox. I won’t forget you or my love for you.”

And what a love it was, an impossible whirlwind romance straight out of a teahouse story. Wei Ying would have never thought he could have such a romance, when all his life had been about staying one step ahead of the trouble that dogged his heels. Yet in the end, trouble had caught up to him. Even a fox as nimble as Wei Ying couldn’t forever outrun the doom of Baoshan Sanren’s line.

He gave a little whine as he buried his face against Jiang Cheng’s neck and clung to him with the same desperation Jiang Cheng held him with. “I’m glad it was you,” he whispered. “I have no regrets.”

Jiang Cheng’s grip on him tightened and he snapped, “Don’t speak as if you’re dying!” His voice shook, furious with grief. “You said it yourself, it’s a century at most. Do you think me so weak I won’t live to see you again?”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it, a chuckle fought its way out of his chest and it hurt because everything was hurting now but he still had to laugh, and then he had to press another desperate kiss to Jiang Cheng’s lips. “I’m not laughing at you,” he promised before his sweet Jiang Cheng could squawk even more outrage, “I’m laughing because I’m happy.” His fingers caressed his brows. “Because I believe you.”

Did he? Jiang Cheng was so much younger in years, even if they had both only recently grown into adulthood. A hundred years would be longer than anything Jiang Cheng could conceive right now. But he wanted to believe. Jiang Cheng was smart, and he was talented, he certainly could if he wished to. With the proper motivation to cultivate, a century would be nothing to him. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to wait that long; Wei Ying had never heard of a huli jing who had rebuilt his cultivation from scratch or how long that took.

Wei Ying smiled so brightly it hurt. His smile was brighter than the sickly-reddish mist that was oozing out of all three dantians now and starting to surround him like a cocoon. “I expect you to work hard. I will still have my mind, even if I’m unable to speak for a while. If you slack off, I’ll come to Lotus Pier and bite you!”

Jiang Cheng did not respond, he simply pulled Wei Ying into one more kiss.

One more kiss that Wei Ying held on to for as long as he could, as he tried to burn every precious moment of it into his memory.

Coughs wracked through him, forcing him to sit upright so he would not choke on the blood clot welling up in him. Jiang Cheng steadied him, one hand on his shoulder and the other rubbing his back.

There was so much they had never gotten to do, so many questions he never got to ask, so many stories he never got to tell. So many firsts they had been robbed of.

The pain exploded outwards.

Wei Ying threw back his head and screamed. He kept screaming as he felt his body contort, bones cracking, muscles and sinews tearing before they reformed smaller, different. It was an agonizing and agonizingly slow process, and it had never been like this, as if his body kept fighting the transformation every step of the way, knowing that there would be no way back.

Maybe he was fighting it. Maybe he wasn’t quite as good at rolling with the punches as he liked to pretend.

His human screams became a fox’s wails.

The pain faded to a dull background hum of being sore all over and Wei Ying whimpered, tucking his snout into the crook of Jiang Cheng’s elbow as he was cradled safely in his arms. He curled himself into a ball as well as he could in this position, his single tail curled around him.

He felt Jiang Cheng’s lips press a kiss between his ears. His fur was getting soaked, he didn’t need to sniff to know it was with Jiang Cheng’s tears. “As if I wouldn’t take you home,” Jiang Cheng whispered, his voice rough with his tears. “I promised.”

He didn’t have human speech anymore, so he lifted his head and licked the tears from Jiang Cheng’s cheeks until he was laughing and making noises of delighted disgust – if he could have, Wei Ying would have joined in his laughter but all he could do to show his relief was wag his tail.

Starting today, he only ever wanted to be the cause of Jiang Cheng’s smiles, he promised himself as he curled back into the safety of his arms and let his eyes fall shut, finally ready to rest and sleep away his aches.

He dreamed of seeing lakes awash with lotuses in bloom, and of once more having lips that could kiss Jiang Cheng.

Chapter Text

As the night neared its end, Jiang Cheng walked at a brisk pace, his face stern as ever despite the fact that he was dripping wet. His boots made an ugly squelching sound with every step he took.

The light of a full moon illuminated his path as he walked through the hilly, grassy landscape where Wei Ying had found an ancient, lightning-split ginkgo tree at the foot of a hill. It had quickly become his favorite place to cultivate.

Tonight, maybe…

He felt fluttery with anticipation, though he showed it only with a scowl. His scowling face still looked youthful; he had aged by a mere few years in all the decades since he first met Wei Ying.

He had taken Wei Ying to Lotus Pier just as he had promised, even if it wasn’t for the life they had dreamed of. Already trapped in the body of a fox, he wasn’t going to further trap him in the confines of sect life, but Wei Ying had always returned to him until finally, Yunmeng Jiang stood firm and proud, a hand-picked successor ready to take leadership, and Jiang Cheng was free to focus solely on cultivating alongside his huli jing.

They had traveled the rivers and lakes, had cultivated in cold caves and on tall mountain peaks, and even visited the Burial Mounds. They spent nights with the fox curled up on Jiang Cheng’s chest like the most devoted of blankets, his snout tucked into the fold of his robes.

Wei Ying had soon regained the ability to speak the human tongue and ever since, they had eagerly bickered and teased, taunted and bantered, and spoken at length of all the things there had been no time for during their short days in that little town between Qishan and Yunmeng.

If he were to have a hundred years of this life, Jiang Cheng would consider himself a favorite of the gods – but Wei Ying was growing more impatient the closer he got to his breakthrough, excited yet restless, bubbling with joyous exuberance that had him struggling some nights to sit still for meditation.

Maybe this would be the night that Wei Ying’s hard work bore fruit.

These days when he went to cultivate in the moonlight, he no longer did so only to cultivate himself. He would clothe himself in oak leaves and wear a bleached skull on his head as was the ritual of foxes who sought to transform into a human guise, and he would cultivate by himself, for these were huli jing rites human cultivators had no place in.

When the night neared its end, Jiang Cheng would go to join him under the ginkgo tree and simply watch over him. Cultivating in this resentment-heavy spot would be harmful to his own progress but it was exactly what Wei Ying needed at this stage, and Jiang Cheng did not mind the wait. When the sun rose, Wei Ying inevitably dozed off with his head in Jiang Cheng’s lap.

On the last full moon, Wei Ying had cuddled up to him as tightly as he could and said his goodbyes, for he had decided he would remain in meditation until he achieved his goal, whether it took a day, a week, or a year.

Jiang Cheng had decided to follow his example, though he wasn’t close to another breakthrough just yet. So he had been meditating on a nearby qi-rich lake until tonight, when he sensed such a flare-up of huli jing energy it had yanked him out of his trance – and sent him splashing right into the lake as he was so startled, he fumbled his qinggong like some wet-behind-the-ears junior.

He would forever deny that he had squealed, and since there were no witnesses to his humiliation, it hadn’t happened.

The dead, blackened ginkgo tree came into view and Jiang Cheng sped up his steps even more.

He came to a sudden stop, legs failing him.

In the light of the rising sun, the yellow leaves of the ginkgo tree shone in burnished golden-red hues full of vibrant life – and underneath this canopy of dripping gold stood a figure clad in blacks and reds. In his hair fluttered a ribbon as fox-red as the tufts of fur at the base of his triangle ears.

He stepped forward and so did the beaming huli jing - who managed all of five steps at a measured pace before he gave a happy yip and hurtled himself into Jiang Cheng’s arms hard enough to nearly send them both toppling to the ground.

Jiang Cheng caught him and held on to him, and his eyes were wide, glistening with unshed tears as he looked into the familiar face he had once fallen in love with. Wei Ying had the same eyes, the same fine features, the same lips that curled into such a mischievous smile.

It was almost as if all these years hadn’t happened. They had, of course, and he could not regret them for they had been good years full of life and joy and learning, even of learning Wei Ying and learning to love him better, but the old familiarity was instantly back. He felt relieved of a worry he hadn’t even been consciously aware of.

“I told you,” Wei Ying said, sounding far too pleased with himself, “I couldn’t stand to make you wait a hundred years.”

“Gloating, Wei Ying? Is this really what you want your first words to be?” Jiang Cheng shot back, a wide grin on his face – yes, there really was familiarity, but not just the familiarity of looking at Wei Ying in his human body, there was also the familiarity that had grown between them over many years of companionship since.

Somehow, Wei Ying managed to brighten his smile another notch. “I was hoping for a kiss, but if I must…”

Jiang Cheng kissed him.

Wei Ying made the sweetest little noise of surprise and pressed into the kiss, his hands kneading at Jiang Cheng’s shoulders.

He tasted just as good as all these years ago and kissed Jiang Cheng with the enthusiasm of a decades-long wait.

By the time they pulled apart to catch their breath, Wei Yings’s smile was already turning sly. He licked his lips, his eyes downright devouring Jiang Cheng. “And now I’m so terribly drained from my breakthrough; if only I knew a handsome immortal with jing to spare…”

Jiang Cheng silenced him with another kiss.