Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian wakes to his chest being kicked. His head bounces on the floor, and his vision is blurry, though whether that’s from the bump on his head or having just woken up from being dead for a decade is anyone’s guess.
He hasn’t heard any human voices in, again, who knows how many years. But the screaming voice he hears now resembles the caterwaul of a crazed animal, and it's almost jarringly familiar.
He takes the verbal abuse in silence even as his vision swims into view, preternaturally sharp.
“Go and tell on me, I dare you.” Another kick is applied to Wei Wuxian’s ribs. “Who are you playing dead for? As if anyone would actually give a crap about all this junk and waste paper. I've smashed everything; let's see what else you've got to go tattle on me with!”
The speaker, voice sounding young and male, haughty and spoiled to the extreme, picks up something --made of paper, judging by the sound it makes when he crumples it in his fist-- and throws it at Wei Wuxian. He’s unable to move, so it hits him on the chin. He doesn't flinch. “Ha! Think you're all that just because you went to a cultivation sect for a few years? Well, didn’t you get kicked out like a stray dog anyway?!”
Wei Wuxian would wince at the phrasing if he were able.
You don't even know the half of it, he thinks wryly.
The youth leaves after another few rounds of verbal abuse and ordering what Wei Wuxian is assuming are servants to keep a watch on him.
Then, silence.
Or, there would've been, if not for the snarling Wei Wuxian can hear behind his ears.
He breathes an exasperated sigh and shoves the beast into the back of his mind, where it snaps its phantom jaws but relents with no further complaint. He makes an attempt at sitting up, but at the vehement protest his body makes, he aborts the movement into a roll onto his stomach, feeling as weak and shaky as he does after- well, after.
He looks at his surroundings, spotting a copper mirror lying on the ground from his place on the floor. Wei Wuxian snatches it up, only to blanch at the reflection he finds there.
The face in the mirror is painted black, with red blotches in a roughly diamond shape inked over his eyelids and brows to resemble narrowed, animalistic eyes. Vertical streaks of bright red adorn his chin and upper lip in a parody of bared fangs.
Wei Wuxian tosses the mirror aside, a little disgusted at the poorly done paint, but mostly with the way something in his hindbrain bristles at the perceived threat reflected back at him. He pushes it back again.
For a second, no even less than that, he’d thought-- well, he’d thought wrong.
But, he thinks wryly, it seems that even in this new body he can’t escape his curse.
Said curse seems to recognize his need for focus, however, and shrinks to the back of his mind, still growling uneasily.
He finally sits up, noticing the array beneath him and, by the coppery tang in the air, that it’s painted in blood. It’s still damp, drawn crookedly but with enough precision to do the job, even with the spells that had been drawn beneath him smudged by his body.
Coming to the obvious conclusion, that he was offered this body through a sacrificial ritual, further supported by the haphazard slash marks he finds on his wrists, he realizes several problems at once.
First, Wei Wuxian has no idea what the original owner of this body wanted him to do to fulfill his end of the bargain he had been pulled into. If he doesn’t, his very spirit will be ripped to shreds even more thoroughly than his body had upon his death at the Burial Mounds.
Second, he doesn’t have much time to fulfill said wish before the moon --which will be full tonight if the itch in the back of his mind and the ferociousness of his headmate are any indicator-- forces a devastating change on his body that would leave him near helpless to any that found him.
He nearly wails aloud at his predicament.
He doesn’t sit in misery long, however, before shakily rising to his feet with the support of the wall- if he wants to make it out of this, he has to come up with a plan. He’s the Yiling Patriarch in everything but body; surely he can find a way out of this.
He takes stock of his surroundings- he’s in an empty house, a shack really. It’s large and filled with the smell of human sweat from the bedding that hasn’t been changed in who knows how long and the cloying scent of the drying blood on the floor. He wrinkles his nose but continues his inspection, finding discarded papers on the floor. He picks them up one by one --including the one that had bounced off of his chin-- reading the frenzied writing with difficulty.
…
Mo Xuanyu, eh?
Not only a cut-sleeve, but the former owner of this body was mentally unstable enough due to his ostracization and abuse that he was known as a lunatic.
Wei Wuxian can work with that.
For all that Mo Xuanyu’s circumstances are tragic, they certainly make his job easier. Even if “Mo Xuanyu” starts acting differently than normal, people will just write it off as him being crazy. And like it or not, the man likely never would’ve attempted the summoning ritual in the first place if his circumstances hadn’t been so dire.
Wei Wuxian was already known for being fiendish and evil in his previous life- being known as a lunatic wouldn’t be so different. He could even have a little fun with it, now that he didn’t have to worry about disgracing his family name.
But first he had to figure out exactly what Mo Xuanyu had wanted from him.
Considering that he’d summoned the Yiling Patriarch, it was most likely that he’d wanted his whole family dead.
Wei Wuxian really, really does not want to do that. He’s almost out of time, but if no one comes to check on him it'll be fine, right?
He has to try other options first.
So getting back what was stolen? Humiliating the Mo family like Mo Xuanyu had been humiliated?
Wei Wuxian searches for water to wash the paint off his itching face as he thinks. He finds none in the shack, not even drinking water. He pauses in his physical search and extends his senses, eyes lighting up when he hears the telltale sound of water outside, a koi’s tail stirring the surface of the water of a still pond from below.
Just then, he hears faint voices from outside and stops, listening in.
They’re walking past, likely servants, just barely in range of his heightened hearing.
“...Working me ragged! I’ve never cleaned so much in my life!” says one, sounding aggrieved.
“...There’s a hotshot clan we’re… today. The Mo family… impress them…” says the second, consoling.
Their voices fade out of range then, but Wei Wuxian gets what he needs out of the overheard conversation.
An important clan, eh? What luck!
Today is actually perfect for him, but he doesn't have much time.
He has to work quickly.