Chapter Text
Nightless City, Qishan.
It was a relentless night where the blood moon was especially bright. Wulin which used to be a pillar of order and peace was now veiled in the hungering mist of ambition. Driven by greed, the so-called cultivators of orthodoxy righteously condemned the one who once stood with them to fight against the oppression of the evil sect, Wen Clan.
It is indeed true that once the rabbits are hunted, the hounds will be boiled.
A figure in billowing black robe stood amidst the chaos with an eerie flute against his lips, playing an equally ominous melody. His eyes flickered with crimson light as the piercing sound of flute cut through the air. The menacing dark spirits circled around him, causing his robes to sway and rustle. It was as though the king of hell crawled out from the abyss, determined to pull everyone as his death bed.
“Haha,” the man chuckled maniacally as blood started to flow from all of his seven orifices.
A leader of a small sect quickly noticed that the evil man, Wei Wuxian, received a spiritual backlash. His eyes flashed with a cold light as he couldn’t contain his greed.
“Wei Wuxian is injured! Quickly capture his Yin Tiger Seal for me,” he shouted to his disciple, wanting to take advantage of Wei Wuxian’s weakness.
His shout echoed in the battlefield and was clearly heard by the cultivators with their good hearing as everyone tacitly stopped fighting and greedily looked at Wei Wuxian.
“Yin Tiger Seal?” Wei Wuxian’s bloodshot eyes surveyed the faces of his previous dao friends, reflecting a torment far deeper than the wounds on his body.
“Since you all want to obtain it so badly…” Wei Wuxian slowly raised his hand. The Yin Tiger Seal which everyone was coveting now floated freely above his palm. Tears started to fall from his eyes, mixing with his blood, but he couldn’t care less.
“Then each of you use your own abilities to snatch it,” he declared as he released the Yin Tiger Seal with finality. Since everyone was courting death, then let them die with the hands of their own companions. Let them see who’s really evil, who’s really righteous.
As the Yin Tiger Seal spiraled into the air, chaos erupted like a raging volcano. Cultivators lunged from all directions, eyes clouded with greed and desperation.
“I’ve obtained the Yin Tiger Sea-” a cultivator shouted, but before he could laugh, blood blossomed on his chest. Raising his head, his eyes stared in disbelief at his bosom friend who had driven into him the very sword he had once forged with his own hands.
Brothers turned on brothers, friends betrayed friends. In the battle of greed, no life would be spared.
In mere moments, the battlefield was drenched in blood. Corpses littered the ground, their faces frozen in rage and disbelief. The very hands that once fought side by side now tore each other apart. It was just like how they had condemned the man that helped them win the war. Now, they had personally tasted the bitterness of betrayal.
As he watched the tragic scene played in front of his eyes, Wei Wuxian’s lips slowly arched into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He clenched his jaw, chin lifted in fragile defiance as he staggered backward. Each faltering step rang out like the fading notes of his will to live.
Wei Wuxian took another unsteady step unwaveringly, as if what’s awaiting behind him was not the abyss that would easily take his life.
But suddenly, he stopped.
His eyes flickered toward the distance, drawn to something that tugged at his very soul.
On the other side of the battlefield, amidst the fury of fighting, there was a figure that stood unmoving. His posture was rigid, as though he was not part of the chaos surrounding him but merely a spectator to some impossible dream. His eyes, empty of emotion, were fixed on Wei Wuxian.
“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian whispered, but the name seemed to travel across the battlefield as though carried by the wind.
At the sound of his name, Lan Wangji’s eyes flickered. He stepped to the side and parried the incoming attack from a Jin cultivator who wants to take advantage of his inattentiveness.
“Not the same,” Lan Wangji murmured under his breath as he flew toward the man he had longed for thousands of years.