Chapter Text
It has been 3 months since the death of Jin Guangyao and the Yin Tiger Tally was destroyed. Wei Wuxian has been staying at Gusu with Lan Wangji ever since. To be with the man he loves and no longer being the number one public enemy, Wei Wuxian truly felt happy after such a long time. They went out night hunting together with the disciples from Gusu Lan clan around the area from time to time, and sometimes with just the two of them, they roamed around much further away from Gusu, “being wherever the chaos is”.
This time, it was no different. After traveling far north for many days, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji found themselves at Wu city. They city was lively and full of excitement. Street performers could be seen here and there, performing martial arts and tricks with children clapping and yelling around them. There were plenty of food stalls and shops along the two side of the main road. Wei Wuxian would have spent all of Lan Wangji’s money on all the food and snacks he had never seen before, if his eyes didn’t land on an inn with a big banner proclaiming “We sell the best liquor in town” in the front. He couldn’t drag poor Lan Wangji in there soon enough.
The sun hasn’t completely set yet and the first floor of the inn, which also served as a restaurant, was already filled with customers eating and drinking. Fortunately, the waiter was able to find them a table in the corner, away from all the noises of the diners. After ordering food and 5 jars of “the best liquor in town”, Lan Wangji calmly sat and observed their surroundings.
After a minute, his eyes stopped at a small shrine sitting on a table on the opposite corner of the room. Even though small, the shrine seemed to be well-kept and was taken care of properly. There were incenses and offerings on the table. Inside the shrine sat two small statues. One was a dusty white color statue with a bamboo hat and a sack on his back, while the other was bright red color with a small black eyepatch on his face. The two statues were connected with a thin red string. As he has never seen statues being worshipped in such manner before around Gusu, Lan Wangji appeared to be trying to make out which gods or deities the owner of the inn was worshipping. Wei Wuxian noticed him and followed his gaze to the shrine as well and asked,
“Lan Zhan, are you curious about the two statues?”
“Mn”
“I have never seen gods’ statues like these before as well. Could they be the local gods? But don’t people usually go to temples to worship gods? And that red string….”
Wei Wuxian rubbed his chin and was going to offer more thoughts, when he was interrupted by the waiter who brought food and wines to their table.
“Sorry for the wait, young masters! Your food and drinks are here!”
The waiter was a young man who had a bright and energetic personality. He was beaming the whole time while placing the wine jars and food on the table. Before the waiter could leave, Wei Wuxian asked him,
“Excuse me, may I ask which gods are those two over there?” He pointed at the shrine. The waiter looked and understood what he meant.
“Oh! Young master, do you mean the statues of the Crown Prince of Xian Le, Xie Lian, and the Ghost King Hua Cheng?”
“A Crown Prince and a Ghost King? Why are they being worshipped together?”
Wei Wuxian’s interest was piqued. The waiter beamed again and puffed his chest.
“His Highness the Crown Prince Xie Lian is considered the most powerful Martial god. We normally pray to him for his protection and for him to ward off evils. However, he is also the god of scraps and misfortune.”
“What the-! Martial god and misfortune?! Why was there such a big gap between his titles?” Wei Wuxian cried. Who would want to worship a god that could bring misfortune? The waiter nodded in agreement and continued,
“You heard it right, young master! That’s where the second statue, the Ghost King Hua Cheng, comes in. In general, Hua Chengzhu has many followers. He is strong and possesses extreme good luck, but his temperament is unpredictable. If he likes you, he would help you even though you did not offer much to him. On the other hand, if he dislikes you, he would not help you even though you offer to build him a temple. The truth is, many people believe that if we place his statue next to the statue of His Highness the Crown Prince, not only it would extremely please the Ghost King, we will also bring the best out of the statue of his Highness. One would gain both his protection and Hua Chengzhu’s fortune!”
Wei Wuxian was amazed. In the past, he had never paid much attention to the stories of gods and their backgrounds. But after hearing this, he couldn’t help but wonder what were the background and connection between the god and the ghost king. And what was the red string all about? Just as he was about to open his mouth to ask, Lan Wangji spoke,“There are incenses and offerings on the table. Does the inn owner pray to them often?”
“That’s right. And not just us, sir. Many people are praying to them at the moment. There is an evil being appearing on the mountain not far from our city and it just becomes more aggressive recently. These past two years, I believe it has killed at least a few dozen of people already. We are hoping His Highness could help us destroying the monsters.”
The smile was gone from the waiter’s face. His voice became lower and his body became smaller, as if he was afraid the “evil monster” could hear him talking about it. Now, that made both him and Lan Wangji stopped what they were doing. Wei Wuxian sat up straight and became serious.
“Could you tell us more about this so-called monster?”
“Well yes, young master, it is….” But just as the waiter was about to tell them more, an older man appeared behind him and slapped his back!
“Hey you! Stop slacking off and get back to work! We have a lot of customers here today! A lot of them are cultivators too so you better serve them well!”
This older man must be the inn owner. And true to his words, now that Wei Wuxian really looked around, he saw about 20 cultivators sitting at several tables in the restaurant. All of them had their weapons hanging on their waist. Judging from their outfits and accessories, they were from different clans but they must be small ones since Wei Wuxian didn’t recognize any of them. Could they be the reason why Lan Wangji carefully observed their surrounding earlier?
Witnessing the interaction between the waiter and the inn owner in front of him, Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but felt like seeing a Déjà vu from many months ago when they were searching for the body parts of Nie Mingjue together. He looked at Lan Wangji and smiled weakly, and Lan Wangji knew what he meant. He fished out his money pouch, put a big amount of money worth of a decent meal for 10 people on the table, and simply said to the inn owner,
“Bring 5 more jars of wines. You can keep the change.”
The inn owner’s eyes widen when he saw the money. He hurriedly smiled while rubbing his hands together.
“Thank you, thank you, young master, for your generosity! The boy will bring you more wines shortly! He can take his time answering any more questions you have!”
Then the old man collected the money, excused himself, and left to tend to other guests. Soon enough, the young waiter came back with 5 more jars of liquor and a bowl of sunflower seeds. He sat down on an empty chair and enthusiastically asked,
“Young masters, are you cultivators too? Are you here to put an end to that evil as well?”
Wei Wuxian smiled at him. “We are cultivators from Gusu Lan sect who just happened to pass by. If you could tell us more about what happened here, maybe we can help!”
The waiter’s mouth formed an O-shape and was in awe when he heard the name Gusu Lan.
“You are from the Lan sect?! I have heard so much about it, especially Hanguang-Jun! I heard he is an exceptionally talented man! If you guys are here, then we have such a high chance against that monster!”
Although someone was praising him in his face, Lan Wangji still had the same emotionless face and calmly speaking to the waiter,
“Please continue your story.”
“Right, right! Young master, you must have heard about the Yiling Patriarch and his Demonic cultivation, right?”
Wei Wuxian almost spat his wine. Why was he being dragged into bad incident again?! Lan Wangji was able to keep his straight face. “Yes, I do. What does this have to do with him?” The young waiter sighed and continue,
“We believed that this evil monster or person, or whatever he became now, used to be a Demonic cultivator. Four years ago, a group of them came to our city and resided in that mountain to practice Demonic Arts. If you go up there, you can still see the traces of their huts and belongings. Soon after they came here, many of our small pets started disappearing. Some folks said that the Demonic cultivators stole them and used them for their rituals but since no one dared to go up there to confront them, we never had any concrete evidence back then. It wasn’t until two years ago that we were sure those cultivators were up to no good.”
The waiter seemed to pause himself for dramatic effect and reached out to grab a handful of sunflower seeds from the bowl and ate them. Wei Wuxian drank his wine and thought to himself, another Déjà vu heh? Lan Wangji used his chopsticks to put some food on Wei Wuxian’s plate before asking “What happened?”
The waiter appeared to be uncomfortable to talk about the next part as he lowered his voice again and shivered.
“One night, we heard a loud scream coming from the mountain, and it wasn’t just one or two people screaming. It sounded as if 10 people were screaming from the top of their lungs all at once! It was horrendous and they sounded like they have met a fate ten times worse than death! After a while, the scream stopped and we couldn’t hear anything anymore. In the morning, some cultivators from the nearby clan went up there to investigate the incident but…”
“But what?”
“Out of all the cultivators that went there, only one person managed to return…”
The waiter’s face paled and he seemed to be shivering even more. Wei Wuxian was stunned. For the cultivators, regardless of their skills, to be all wiped out like that, this “monster” must have had a strong resentful energy. He tried to think of what were the rituals these Demonic cultivators could have attempted to perform. A few scenarios came to his mind so he wanted more information to clarify.
“Did that cultivator who survived say what he saw? Where is he now? Can we talk to him?”
The waiter closed his eyes and shook his head, his voice cracked,
“He said…when they arrived at the Demonic cultivators’ place, he saw a man covered in blood standing in the middle of some sort of a pattern written with blood on the ground. He was holding a sword in his hand. There were about ten dead bodies around him. As soon as he saw the group of cultivators, he charged and started fighting them. Killing everyone on sight. This cultivator managed to come back down with a few sword wounds on his body because he was the first one to run away. And to answer your other questions, no, you cannot talk to him because he….he’s already dead. He died 3 days after the incident.”
Now both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were shocked. If the man only received a few wounds and was able to run back down from the mountain, the wounds must have not been very severe. Why did he die shortly after that? And hearing about written blood pattern on the ground, it was clear that those Demonic cultivators were attempting certain rituals. And there were killing and corpses involved. Could they, like any other the Demonic cultivators who tried to follow his path, just attempted to summon an army of fierce corpses? As Wei Wuxian pondered, he still thought something didn’t seem right.
“This cultivator’s wounds, were they fatal? Was that why he died within a few days after the incident?”
“No, sir. He received sword wounds on his arms and back. They were not deep and far from critical organs. However, his wounds never stopped bleeding. Even the best doctors in the city could not help him. You could say he…he bled to death…”
That was something he didn’t expect. Shallow wounds that kept on bleeding and could not be treated. Fierce corpses with resentful energy were not capable of doing this. Could these Demonic cultivators be attempting something beyond what he had recorded? While Wei Wuxian was still deep in thoughts, Lan Wangji took out some more money and gave it to the waiter.
“Thank you. I believe we got enough information now. Please book us a room for tonight. You can keep the rest of the money.” Although his face was still pale, the waiter gladly took the money and muttered ‘thank you and enjoy your stay’ before he left. Wei Wuxian then turned to Lan Wangji,
“I’m afraid this is not just a common case of corpses summoning we have here. Could this also involve…curse energy?”
Lan Wangji solemnly replied with, “I believe so.”
Wei Wuxian looked around the room one more time. “Lan Zhan, these cultivators are well-equipped with weapons and talismans. I think they are preparing to go night hunting that thing tonight. We should go too. If that thing, whether it is a human or demon, is as dangerous as I expected, I don’t think these cultivators will be able to handle it.”
Lan Wangji nodded, “Alright.”
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Later that night, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian left the inn and walked towards the mountain the waiter told them about. Along the way, they saw more and more cultivators from different clans walking towards the same direction. By the time that they arrived at the foot of the mountain, there seemed to be around 40 something cultivators altogether. Wei Wuxian now understood. This is not them randomly coming together by chance. These small clans must have had initial meetings beforehand and must have reached an agreement to meet on this particular day to join force to fight the monster together. Perhaps these past 2 years, there must have been cultivators who individually tried to subdue the demon here and there but were unsuccessful. Now that the reports of missing or dead cultivators who ventured into this mountain have been adding up more and more, these clans could not ignore the demon any longer. Since trying to tackle it individually didn’t yield a good outcome, they couldn’t help but requesting a joint squad. As the two walked towards the group, some of the cultivators noticed them and were stunned. Murmurs and gossips immediately started.
“Look, that white robe with cloud patterns and a headband, isn’t that a cultivator from the Lan Sect??”
“It looks like he’s also carrying a guqin on his back. This man must be…Hanguang-Jun?”
“Wait, if that is Hanguang-Jun, then the man next to him is…..”
As soon as it dawned on the cultivators who they were, many of them already started making a face and complaining.
“Awww…man, if Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch are here, then what is left for us to do?!”
“Yeah, they probably are going to demolish everything in their path.”
“Right. Afterall, we were informed that there was only one demon causing trouble in this mountain anyway.”
“This is such a waste of time for me. I will probably have a better chance going night hunt somewhere else tonight.”
“Me and my men are leaving. Good luck on the hunt, guys.”
“Yeah, me too…”
And with that, half of the group left. Now only 20 something people was left, including the person who seemed to be the leader of the hunt. He had one hand on his hip and the other pinching the bridge of his nose, and sighed. Wei Wuxian could only let out a weak smile. He felt slightly bad. It seemed like even though he was no longer a public enemy, some cultivators still weren’t happy to see him around, especially during the night hunt. Lan Wangji approached the cultivator who was supposed to be the leader of the group.
“My apologies. We didn’t know your clan had planned for the joint-hunt today. We simply passed by this city by chance today and heard what happened here on this mountain.”
The man quickly changed his posture and bowed to him.
“No no! There is no need for the esteemed Hanguang-Jun to apologize! Please don’t pay attention to those cultivators who left. The monster was reported to be very powerful and we thought it was best to try to overcome it by numbers. But if Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch are here, it would be very reassuring!”
Lan Wangji nodded. Wei Wuxian leisurely moved to stand next to Lan Wangji and asked,
“We only heard that the demon was supposed to be a cultivator who practiced Demonic Cultivation. Do you have any further information on it?”
The group leader politely bowed his head and gestured for them to go forward, “Let’s us move forward to the location where the demon was last seen. I will fill you in what we learned along the way.” And with that, the leader led the whole group deep into the mountain.